Competitive day for JC meet on new track

The upcoming Jamaica College (JC)/Pure Water/Danny Williams Invitational Track and Field meet on Saturday, January 5, 2019, will offer athletes a more comfortable facility to get ready for the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships (Champs), as it will take place on a synthetic track.

JC became the latest high school to have its own track, after rivals Calabar High School and Kingston College (KC). Contrary to previous reports that the track was the idea of R Danny Williams, it was actually the late Carlton Alexander, past student and former chairman of the school board, as well as members of the sports committee in the 1980s, who saw the need for a multi-sports complex at the institution.

Historic occasion

While it will be a historic occasion for the Old Hope Road School, it will also become a special one for athletes competing in the Boy's Class 2 400m hurdles. This race gets the day's events start at 8:30 a.m. with heats.

The event, since its addition to the Champs schedule two years ago, has been a competitive one with the likes of Calabar's Dean Clarke, the eventual winner at Hampshire this year, and schoolmate Andre Leslie, along with Excelsior High School's Devontie Archer and KC's Shantamoi Brown having some interesting duels last season. The stage is now set for the new group of athletes in the class to continue that trend.

Other track events to be contested at the meet will be the Class 1 Boy's 400m hurdles, Girl's Open 400m hurdles, sprint hurdles in all classes for Boys and Girls, the 3000m Open for Girls, 5000m Open for Boys, and 100 metres in all classes for Boys and Girls.

There will also be several field events on the day including the long jump, high jump, discus throw and shot put for males and females, with the pole vault for males.