Sabrina Dockery (centre) of Lacovia Highschool wins the U-20 100m last in 11.30 seconds, forward of Shanoya Douglas (left) of Muschett Excessive Faculty and Abigail Wolfe of Wolmer’s Excessive Faculty for Women, on the latest Carifta Trials at G C Foster Faculty. (Images: Joseph Wellington)
The organisers of the Grand Slam Observe sequence, which can begin in Kingston in April, are proposing a face-off between the highest eight quickest runners in three occasions on the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Women’ Athletics Championships, as a part of their schedule.
The highest eight quickest runners within the 100m, 200m and 400m for each girls and boys at ‘Champs, no matter age group, can be invited to face off towards one another on the Grand Slam occasion, which can be held per week after Champs, based on Don Lockerbie, venue supervisor for Grand Slam Observe.
The proposal was made on Wednesday throughout a gathering between ISSA, highschool coaches and Irwine Claire, CEO of Workforce Jamaica Bickle, to begin planning for faculties collaborating within the annual Penn Relays to be held in Philadelphia in late April.
Lockerbie, a former athlete and coach on the NCAA stage within the USA, mentioned they have been nonetheless going by way of the planning phases however thought the occasion may assist to boost the game right here in Jamaica and likewise can be proven throughout their broadcast to over 100 nations.
Moreover, he mentioned they have been additionally working with ISSA to give you appropriate incentives for individuals who took half within the six races deliberate.
The plan may doubtlessly arrange one other conflict between Lacovia Excessive’s Sabrina Dockery, who’s in Class 1, and Muschett Excessive’s Shanoya Douglas, who’s in Class 2, after they shared victories within the 100m and 200m, respectively, within the Beneath-20 sprints eventually weekend’s Carifta Trials held at GC Foster.
Lockerbie mentioned he had lived in Jamaica for six years throughout which era he bought a first-hand information of the affect of the ISSA Champs.
“Whereas it’s the most unimaginable highschool, secondary faculty athletics competitors on this planet, you don’t have the identical faculties the place the perfect athletes are essentially racing one another. There’s age group and there are classifications of colleges. So you could discover that the perfect ladies’ 100m runner is 15, however she gained’t run towards the 17 and 18 12 months olds, or she’s in a smaller faculty, or no matter. So one of many issues we considered, figuring out that we’re the very subsequent week, is we wish to add a boys’ and ladies’ 100m, a boys’ and ladies’ 200m, and a boys’ and ladies’ 400m to Grand Slam Observe the very subsequent weekend,” mentioned Lockerbie.
He mentioned the plan was to take the perfect eight in every occasion throughout the age teams from ‘Champs, “and allow them to toe the road and race the next Saturday,” including that it was understood that among the athletes, for multiple motive, wouldn’t be obtainable.
“We all know that some athletes will select to not, we hope that the highest eight would all say sure but when we maybe take a look at the highest 12 or 16 athletes from the Champs competitors, we’ll go so as of efficiency till we get eight,” he famous.
Lockerbie mentioned they might give the youngsters a style of what it’s prefer to run within the skilled setting.
“What we’d need to do is deal with these eight in every occasion as in the event that they have been experiencing Champs the best way the professionals will. We’ll have them be dropped off on the athletes’ resort, they’ll get their credentials, we might have reward baggage, we might bus them over to our drop-off space on the Stadium East, they might undergo our medical services, our name rooms and make their method down the tunnel to the observe and race.”
The schedule remains to be being labored on he additionally mentioned, including, “due to contractual obligations, we might have the races run earlier than we go on stay on worldwide TV, however we might completely movie all of the races. You realize, whenever you add up these six races, it solely provides as much as about six, about three minutes whole, of precise racing. So we might completely need to put the content material of these racers, of these races, into our worldwide broadcast, our broadcast group would work out once they would possibly need to speak concerning the races that occurred earlier than we went stay on air.”
Incentives, he mentioned, would even be a part of the deal.
“Whereas we haven’t finalised all of the incentives, I’ll be having conferences within the subsequent week with our group about what we would do in the best way of awards, and we expect that the awards is likely to be money contributions that we might give to the faculties by way of ISSA that is likely to be useful for among the athletes who’re going to Penn [Relays], we might assist, I believe, by some type of an awards plan. However we might additionally know that some faculties will not be going to Penn, or a few of these athletes could not go into Penn, so it might nonetheless have the ability to go to the observe and discipline programme on the faculties that carry out effectively, the place the children carry out effectively.”
