Don Quarrie
Jamaican athletics (sport) competitor, sprinter
Donald O'Riley Quarrie CD (born 25 February 1951) is a Jamaican former track and field athlete, one of the world's top sprinters during the 1970s. At the 1976 Summer Olympics he was the gold medallist in the Olympic 200 meters and silver medallist in the Olympic 100 meters. In all, he competed in five Olympic Games and won four Olympic medals during his career.
He nearly equalled the 200 meters world record in 1971, coming within .03 seconds of the time set by Tommie Smith in 1968. He has a personal best of 19.86 seconds set in Cali, Colombia on 3 August 1971. As of 2024, this remains the track record.
He won 100 metres/200 metres sprint doubles at the 1970 Commonwealth Games, 1971 Pan American Games, and 1974 Commonwealth Games. He was the first male to defend either the 100 m or 200 m title at the Commonwealth Games and a 100 m win at the 1978 Commonwealth Games makes him the only person to have won that title three times. He won nine gold medals in the sprints at the Central American and Caribbean Championships in Athletics from 1971 to 1981.
He has received recognition both on and off the field.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Don Quarrie” is jamaican athletics (sport) competitor, sprinter. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Quarrie, Jamaican and athletics, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “jamaican athletics (sport) competitor, sprinter” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q248120. VIAF identifies the subject as 53788167. The Library of Congress control number is no99062203. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1976, 1971 and 1968.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Don Quarrie”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Don Quarrie primary sources, Don Quarrie archive and Quarrie research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Don Quarrie”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Don Quarrie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.