Days 3 and 4 of this year’s National Schools Cycling, Swimming and Track and Field Championships was regrettably called off because of one of the forces of Mother Nature.
According to Competition Director, Seon Bristol, the events at the GDF ground which were scheduled for yesterday and today’s finale were shelved because of heavy rainfall.
“The entire championships has been called off. There’s nothing we could do about the rain and we had to do what was best for the ground and the athletes”, Bristol explained yesterday.
Year after year the championships have been affected by yearend rainfall, leaving members of the public to question why the organizers cannot stage the championships earlier in the year like Jamaica does. Jamaica’s world famous ‘Champs’ is staged in late March and is subsequently used to select their national team for the CARIFTA Games on the Easter Weekend.
The championships were just a microcosm of things that were affected due to the elements which are expected this time of year.
All public schools in Regions 2, 3 and 4 were closed yesterday due to deep flooding. Many businesses were also closed.
On the sunnier side of things, during the first two days of competition, the 10km races, the 25km and 40km cycling road races and some track and field events were successfully staged.
Broken records and many upsets were recorded.
Arguably, the highlight of the 54th edition of the meet was Tevin Garraway breaking the U-20 100m record which stood for 22 years. Garraway clocked 10.5s to erase Julian Edmonds’ mark (10.6s) which was set in Linden. (Emmerson Campbell)
