by Carlena Knight
The Principal of the champion school in the recently held Inter-school Track and Field Championship, Dr Colin Greene, is commending the Ministry of Sports for the execution of the meet.
Greene was speaking on the Good Morning JoJo Sports show days after it was announced that the Princess Margaret School (PMS) won both the male and female titles.
He said that the organisers did a good job in ensuring the meet was held successfully on their part, something he added that should never be too difficult for them to do.
“I think that went very well. Considering the facility that they have to work with. I think the races moved smoothly. Inter-schools is not something that requires no massive organisation from the Ministry of Sports. It is the schools that do a lot of the arrangements,” Greene said.
“All of the schools responded very, very well. The schools that were there came in their numbers and they had a good time. Refreshments, uniforms and all of that is provided by each school. We provide everything, it’s not the ministry that does that. The ministry provides technical support and the athletes execute the meet and so, I think, the execution of the meet went well,” he added.
According to the sports enthusiast, it was a great feeling to see the level of comradery between schools, and the performances of institutions that are not necessarily known for their track and field programmes.
It was because of those performances why Greene questioned the ministry’s hesitance in setting a date for the event.
“Schools and the children demonstrated that this is an activity that they wanted to be a part of and it is something that they are looking forward to. I think a tremendous amount of credit must be given to all the schools that came out and took part.
“The comradery was really nice. You saw schools that don’t necessarily have a tradition in track and field winning medals. I see St. Anthony’s had a really nice sprinter, Glanvilles had a nice male sprinter there, and the Under-17 female MVP even came from Ottos Comprehensive, so you had performances all around that were tremendous. So, in that sense the ministry itself can take some commendation for that,” Greene said.
Despite giving commendations, the PMS head mentioned that there were some areas that need to be improved, the biggest being the fact that the results for the meet were not announced on the final night of the two-day competition.
According to reports, some of the papers on which the results been recorded had gotten wet and the person responsible for the statistics had to leave promptly.
“That didn’t go down too well at all. The kids want to know what the results are and people are not only interested in just the fact of who won. Some schools are satisfied in knowing they came second or came third, that’s something for them to celebrate, but in a sense, they should look to see that this is something that has tremendous potential; I have been saying so for years.
“I guess they have some limitations with the lack of facilities,” Greene added.
Princess Margaret School, Pares Secondary School, Glanvilles Secondary School, Irene B Williams Secondary School, Jennings Secondary School, St Mary’s Secondary School, Ottos Comprehensive School, Antigua State College, Antigua Grammar School, Clare Hall Secondary School, St Anthony’s Secondary School and Island Academy all participated in this year’s Inter-schools event.
The championships, held at the YASCO Sports Complex, were the first since 2017 after the event was halted due to an unsuitable surface at the facility.
The athletes competed in the Under-15, Under-17 and Under-20 categories.