By Neto Baptiste
A number of regional and international athletes are expected to compete at this year’s National Track and Field Championships slated for June 25 and 26 at the YASCO Sports Complex.
This was confirmed by one member of the Antigua and Barbuda Athletics Association (ABAA) and former national athlete, Ted Daley, who said the final list of athletes will be completed on Monday next week.
“We have athletes from the British Virgin Islands, athletes from Anguilla and a few athletes from the United States [of America] as well. One of the things, though, is that a lot of the other associations are having their national championships the same weekend — like Jamaica, Trinidad and several other countries,” he said.
A number of the country’s top athletes like sprinters Cejhae Greene, Dwayne Fleming and Joella Lloyd are expected to compete over the two-day period.
Daley assured that plans are on track for hosting the event which made a comeback last year following a long hiatus.
“We have secured all the necessary equipment that we need to make sure the meet comes off, and so I am pretty satisfied that everything is going well. The timing device that we have is in excess of 20 years old, a black and white camera and during natural light or the daytime it works as well as any other finish line equipment, but in the evening, it’s going to give some issues because it’s not going to pick up everybody clearly, especially if the race is very close, but for this meet we have made some contingency plans,” he said.
However, the administrator revealed that the body expects to have use of a fully functional camera for the meet.
“We are going to install some additional lights at the finish line; that camera can pick up everybody clearly. The other plan is that we have already confirmed with one of our partners that they are bringing a couple of athletes to compete in the meet, and they are going to bring their finish line equipment which is about three or five years old, so that is up-to-date equipment,” Daley said.
Following a comeback with a scaled down instalment of the nationals last year, the event had not been held since 2017 due to a number of challenges, chief of which was the unsafe surface of the YASCO track.