Gibson McCook Relays attracts more than 3,500 athletes
Published:Thursday | February 23, 2017 | 12:24 PMRaymond Graham
More than 3,500 competitors will be in action at tomorrow's 41st staging of the Gibson McCook Relays at the National Stadium.
Action will get under way at 9 a.m. with the preliminary rounds of the high-school boys' 4x400 metres. The finals of this event will close the meet at 9:20 p.m.
With the annual ISSA GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships just over a month away, the spotlight at the prestigious relays will be on the high schools. This will once again be used as a measuring stick for the respective coaches going into that championships, and fierce competition is expected once again as teams seek the very important psychological advantages ahead of 'Champs'.
As usual, commemorative watches will be handed out to the winners of the championship events at the Gibson McCook Relays. The top three finishers in each final will also be awarded medals. There are13 championship events, eleven of these will be contested by high-school athletes and two by clubs and institutions.
The high-school events are: 4x100m Under-19 boys and girls, 4x100m Under-17 boys and girls, 4x200m girls' open, 4x200m boys Class One, 4x200m Class Two boys, 4x400m boys' open, 4x400m girls' open, 4x800m girls' open and 4x800m boys' open. The two championships events for clubs and institutions are the men's 4x100m and 4x400m.
There will also be incentives sponsored by Digicel. These include prizes for the top boys' and girls' teams and the best overall performance on the day.
Several individual events, both in the field and on the track, will be contested. On the track, the events include the 100m for males and females and 400m for both sexes. In the field, the men will compete in pole vault, while both men and women will compete in high jump and long jump.
The organising committee got things under way on Wednesday night with the staging of the Howard Aris Memorial Lecture inside the University of Technology auditorium, where chiropractor, and former Wolmer's Boys' athlete and Olympian Dr Neil Gardner spoke on burnout among athletes.