Busy day for track and field athletes

TODAY will be a busy day for local track and field athletes as three venues, Calabar High, G. C. Foster College and the National Stadium will host JAAA/Puma Development meets.

High-school athletes only will compete at the first two venues while, at the National Stadium, both high-school and senior athletes will be in action. The high-school meets start at 8:30 a.m., while the seniors will be in action at 7 p.m.

Several Olympians, including 100 metres bronze medallist Shericka Jackson, will compete at the JAAA-SDF Jubilee meet inside the National Stadium. This will be the first of four meets for seniors as they prepare for the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon in July. Each meet will contain 14 individual events, with four designated premium. Today’s premium events are men’s and women’s discus and men’s and women’s 400m.

For the premium events, athletes will be awarded points and, at the end of the series, the top three finishers in each discipline will get cash prizes, with winners getting $50,000, second-place finishers $30,000 and those in third getting $20,000 each.

FIRST TIME THIS SEASON

Jackson, who has been contesting the 60 metres for the first time this season, will line up in the event against Natasha Morrison, her training partner at MVP Track Club, and the SprinTec Track Club pair, Remona Burchell and Shashalee Forbes.

Fresh off a 60-metre indoor win recently in the United States, MVP’s Nigel Ellis will head a strong field in the men’s event. Club teammate and World Championships long jump gold medallist Tajay Gayle will join him here, along with the SprinTec trio of Cedric Hines, Demish Gaye and Rasheed Dwyer.

In early action at the National Stadium, high-school athletes will compete in the 200m, 400m hurdles and 4x400 metres on the track while, in the field, there will be action in the javelin throw, discus throw and triple jump. Females will kick off the programme at 8:30 a.m. and the males are set to start at 1:30 p.m.

Females will also start first (8:30 a.m.) at G. C. Foster College. The events down to be contested are shot put, discus throw, long jump and high jump in the field. On the track will be the 200m, 800m, 2000m steeplechase and 4x100m relays.