IAAF injects $2.5m into JN International Invitational

André Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

Having upgraded the JN International Invitational meet to International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) World Challenge status, the sport's world governing body has also committed US$30,000 (J$2.5 million) towards the staging of the event, which will run at the National Stadium on May 7 next year.

Heading into its eighth staging the meet, which was previously classified as a North America, Central America and Caribbean area permit meet, has been bumped up to World Challenge classification, making it one step lower than the lucrative Diamond League circuit.

Additionally, it has also been revealed that the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) was originally approached by the IAAF ahead of this year's staging of the meet, with the idea of an upgrade.

However, certain proposed changes to the meet structure and the number of events that could be run, forced careful consideration from the administration.

Fondness

For instance, the IAAF requires that sprinting events alternate between male and female athletes, a stipulation that is not ideal for meet organisers given the fondness of local track fans of these particular events.

President of the JAAA, Howard Aris, while highlighting that discussions are continuing with a view to arriving at a compromise, pointed to the initial concerns and underlined that there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that a successful meet is delivered.

"We had the opportunity to have the meet upgraded from this year, but it was something that we were reluctant to really take on at that time given the number of events and the types of events that they (IAAF) normally wants to see and there were other little things that we felt would affect the way we have been running our meet in the past," said Aris.

"They (IAAF) offered to upgrade our meet, we had no input in that process at all. We were contacted by them in 2009 indicating that they were contemplating it for the meet earlier this year and we should do certain things, but we did not take it up at the time. We, however, decided that the time was right this time around," Aris pointed out, before highlighting some of the concerns.

"For next year, we have indicated to the IAAF that we would like to retain the same events that we have been using over the years, particularly the men's and women's 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m," he said.

"Normally at the World Challenge meets, you have to alternate these events. If you have the men's 100m, you don't have the women's 100m and so on, so it was within that context that we were a bit concerned about plunging headfirst in it without really looking at everything first," Aris pointed out. "Hopefully, we will be able to retain the events that we are accustomed to."