Hubert Lawrence | A World U21 Champs makes sense

QUITE RIGHTLY, scribes have written chapter and verse on how the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games will affect veteran sportsmen and women. Some of them built their whole lives around the 2020 Olympics and no one can be sure what lies ahead. However, these experienced ones know that all they can do is wait and be ready.

Those champions can’t control the young lions who might intercept their drive to make history. All they can do is wait, train and be ready. It might be hard, but at least, they still have the choice.

It’s completely different for the under-20 track and field athletes of the world. Last week, the wave of postponement caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus extended to the World Under-20 Championship, set for Nairobi, Kenya, in July. The local meet organisers, the Kenyan Government and World Athletics, did exactly what their counterparts in Tokyo did and for the same pressing reason.

However, while Olympic veterans can choose to stick around, a move to 2021 for the World Under-20 Championship will eliminate some of the world’s best young prospects. A new date hasn’t been announced yet but any date next year will be too late for those who turn 20 in 2021. The rules are clear. To be eligible, the athlete must be under 20 during the entire year of competition.

One-time championship

If the worldwide fight against the virus is won early enough, Nairobi could host the world later down this year, along with meets the sport’s governing body has in mind. If next year is more feasible, one suggestion is for World Athletics to authorise a World Under-21 Championship on a one-time only basis.

That would facilitate those who leave the under-20 category after December 31. At the same time, the 2021 World Under-21 Championship would do what the World Juniors has always done by showcasing some of the sport’s next generation.

IMPORTANT TARGET

Some of Jamaica’s prominent student athletes had the Nairobi junior athletics summit as an important target. Edwin Allen High’s Kevona Davis, the Petersfield High School pair of Antonio Watson and Shaquena Foote, former Vere Technical High School star hurdler Britany Anderson, and Calabar’s Kimar Farquharson were all training with Kenya on their minds.

World Under-18 100m hurdles gold medallist in 2017, Anderson was a whisker away from Under-20 glory two years ago. She lost a very tight photo-finish verdict in the same event where Briana Williams, Kai Chang and Damion Thomas all triumphed.

Anderson turns 20 on January 3 next year. Her 2017 World Under-18 teammates, 100m bronze medallist Davis, 400 winner Watson, Foote and Farquharson will follow suit during 2021.

This fate will befall young prospects all around the world. They include the St Lucian Julien Alfred, who has accelerated her sprinting in her first year at the University of Texas, and Cuban triple jump prodigy, Jordan Diaz.

It doesn’t have to be this way. To give us all enough time to put the health challenges of 2020 to rest, it really is best to defer mass gatherings like the World Under-20 Championships. However, unlike the Olympic Games and the World Championships, moving the Under-20 meet into next year makes many top prospects ineligible. To save the day, the authorities might need to do something little different. A one-time only World Under-21 Championship might just work.

Hubert Lawrence has scrutinised local and international track and field athletics since 1980.