Interest in Intercol Track and Field Championships rises
Published:Sunday | March 10, 2024 | 12:09 AMOrane Buchanan - Staff Reporter
WITH LESS than a week to go before the 2024 staging of the Inter-Collegiate Sports Association (Intercol) Track and Field Championships at G.C. Foster College on March 15, president of Intercol Paul Beckford is pleased that, despite a drop in awareness in recent times, there has been a boost in the number of entries this year.
“Things are shaping up pretty well, as I’m impressed with the number of entries of institutions that have confirmed their participation in comparison to the previous year. We would have agreed that over the years there’s been a lull, but we’re making every effort to have Intercol where it was and should be,” he explained.
Beckford added that the overseeing team has noticed that a plethora of new institutions have made their intentions known about participating at this year’s staging.
The 2024 Intercol will also see a new event being introduced to give the various teams background work ahead of the Penn Relays.
“The athletes are very excited, as we’ve being having some institutions asking for an extension on the deadline for registration. What we’ve done this year is to include the 4x200-metre relays, as this is an opportunity for the institutions that will be going to the Penn Relays to showcase themselves and see where they are at this point. This event wouldn’t be a points event,” he added.
G.C. Foster will be taking aim at defending their male and female titles. Last year, the male team ended the championships on 203 points, finishing ahead of The University of the West Indies, Mona, who had 132, Mico University (77), and Moneague College (50).
G.C. Foster’s women scored 175 points to finish ahead of Moneague, 96, University College, 84, and UWI, 74.
According to Beckford, who is also vice-president of administration at G.C. Foster College, from his vantage point, the team is hard at work in a bid to retain their title.
“One thing about the championship is that you’ll never be able to guess the champion until the day of the event. G.C. Foster College are training and preparing themselves to defend their title. I haven’t seen the other institutions but, from where I am, they’ve also continued to train and prepare themselves for the challenges,” he noted.
When quizzed about the possibilities of having the popular 4x400-metre mixed relays at the Intercol level, Beckford said that while it isn’t far-fetched, there would not have been enough entries for this year’s staging.
“It was mentioned but one of the challenges we have is that not all the institutions would have had the numbers. So we didn’t want to place them at a disadvantage.”