By Neto Baptiste
The stage is being set for the hosting of this year’s Cool and Smooth Inter-Schools Track and Field Championships slated to run from March 8-10 at the YASCO Sports Complex.
Director of Sports and former national sprinter, Heather Samuel Daley, said the Ministry of Sports is finalising plans for the anticipated event.
“We’ve had our meetings with our sponsor and have had discussions with other sponsors as well, and we’ve have discussions with the schools and registration is now closed, so we have 17 schools registered and so it’s now for us to finalise our technical issues at YASCO and I think those are going quite well. Our partners are coming on board, meaning CBH, Solid Waste and so on, and I know that anything can go wrong on the day because I’ve seen that over the years and so we are trying to minimise as many of the issues that may arise,” she said.
Multiple-times-champions, Princess Margaret School (PMS), comfortably won both the boys and girls divisions of the 2023 edition of the championships.
Daley is however, anticipating a competitive event this year as a number of the country’s young sprinters have been competing on the local front for some months now.
“Coming out of the Carifta trials last week we saw some real promising performances like the young man, Kevon Campbell, who I think goes to the All Saints Secondary, and we saw him in the 400 and 200 meters. We have, of course, the usual persons like the young Tyra Fenton who would have qualified for three events to the Carifta Games, Geolyna Dowdye who has also qualified for the Carifta Games, and we have Kasiya Daley, Malique Francis from the Antigua Grammar School, and we have the young lady from Sir Novelle. Sir Novelle is coming guns blazing this year, with approximately 60 athletes registered so far,” she said.
The former national record holder in both the 100 and 200 meters however noted that organisers have decided that athletes not attached to a participating school will no longer be allowed to compete under the Ministry of Sports banner as was the case last year.
“It was coming out of Covid when some schools thought it wasn’t best for their athletes to participate, and so we took the decision to invite them to represent the Ministry of Sports, so they were under the Ministry of Sports. This time around, it’s not so, and all of the schools that are usual suspects have been participating, so any athlete that was not selected for their school cannot, and will not, be able to represent the Ministry of Sports because their school is [not] participating,” Daley said.
Action will sprint off at 2:00 pm, while the event carries an entrance fee of $10 per person.