Hubert Lawrence | Champs shaping Jamaican athletics

Five years before the merger of Boys’ Championships and Girls’ Championships, ISSA took a giant step forward. No longer would athletes be permitted to compete at Champs in as many events as they and their coaches chose. It was a decision that bore golden dividends.

The move countered well-documented cases of overload and burnout. Combined with two other developments, the new rule helped to lift Jamaica to the forefront of world athletics. Coupled with the islandwide spread of coaching expertise via the G.C. Foster College of Physical Education and Sport and the emergence of a train-at-home option at the University of Technology in 1999, the ISSA ruling set the stage for a golden era.

Now runners cannot do no more than two individual events and field event athletes have a maximum of three.

The out-turn is an increase of medal counts at the Olympic and World Championship level. Until 2007, no Jamaica team had won more than nine medals at a major track and field championship. Since then until 2016, it became commonplace for Jamaica to exceed 10.

As the 21st merged Boys and Girls’ Championship unfolds at the National Stadium, distressing news from Calabar High School has overtaken public interest. To solve the immediate issue, the adjudicators will have to rely on incontrovertible proof to make a ruling. Even when that process is over, there will be a bitter aftertaste.

STRONG SUPPORT

Despite the troubles, fans attended day one of the annual spectacle in large numbers and presumably the usual support will be present throughout. For all I know, interest will rise because of all that is in the news. Hopefully, things will work for the wide-ranging good.

When the dust settles there, an opportunity may arise to consider again the revolutionary anti-recruitment rules introduced by ISSA this year. For athletics, it restricts recruiting schools to two new athletes per class. In addition, those recruits remain on the school’s quota until they leave.

On the one hand, the new rules reflect sympathy for schools who often lose their young prospects. On the other, it can maroon good prospects in under-resourced programmes. In the review, there will hopefully be a second look at the quota so that a better balance point can be found.

At the same time, with more good prospects staying where they were planted, some one will have to duplicate the conditions of stronger programmes. That means money for better playing fields, medical care, physical therapy and feeding programmes.

If the new situation prevails in its current form, funding will be needed for running shoes and spikes, starting blocks and hurdles, throwing implements and apparatus for the jumps and the vault by schools which don’t yet have the finances to meet those costs.

Without that, balance will be hard to find.

BALANCED PROGRAMME

Petersfield High School may be the model of the emerging programme of the future. Seldom do its student athletes depart for other schools and recently a group of past students have joined the Petersfield drive to success. If the balance point remains where it is, Petersfield will become the model.

This is day three of Championships and it’s another chance for the world to see the best of Jamaica in an activity in which the island is one of the world’s elite. In the past, Champs has been a launch pad for Wint, McKenley, Quarrie, Ottey, Cameron, Bolt, VCB, Fraser-Pryce and so many other greats. Look carefully. The next in the line might emerge this week.

Hubert Lawrence has attended Champs since 1980.