MoBay stadium opens today

Adrian Frater, News Editor

Western Bureau:

The new $1.4 billion Montego Bay Stadium, which is located in the Catherine Hall area of the western city, will be officially opened today during the staging of the second Western Primary Invitation track meet.

The 8,000-seat facility, which was constructed by the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) with the aid of the Venezuelan government through the San Jose Accord, has the only running track that is up to international standard in western Jamaica.

"The UDC has been at the fore-front of development in Montego Bay over the past 40 years," said Lenworth Tracey, deputy general manager of the UDC, during his recent announcement of the plans to open the new facility.

At today's ceremony, which is slated for 11:30 a.m., the list of dignitaries will be headed by Sports Minister Olivia Grange, Venezuela's Ambassador to Jamaica Noel Martinez Ochoa, Montego Bay's Mayor Charles Sinclair, and UDC Chairman Wayne Chen.

The Western Primary Invitational, which is slated to start at 9 a.m. but will break for the opening ceremony, features 20 primary schools from western Jamaica and, according to meet director Albert Ferguson, all the teams are holding high expectations as they seek to make their mark in the one-day championship.

"Last year, we had 16 teams on the grass track at Cornwall College and it was very exciting," said Ferguson. "With more teams and much better facilities, we are expecting an excellent meet."

Listed among the schools that will be on show today are defending champions Petersfield Primary of Westmoreland; Montego Bay's Cornaldi Avenue Primary, which finished second, and third-place finisher Mt Ward of Hanover.

"We are coming to retain our title," said Godfrey Drummond, coach of Petersfield. "We have an athlete who we believe will be the next Usain Bolt and we are quite anxious to show him off to the public."

While the new stadium has met the need for a standard running track in the west, there is some amount of disappointment that the facility was scaled down from the 20,000 seats that was announced at the groundbreaking. With just 8,000 seats, the new facility falls below the requirement for international events.