Hubert Lawrence | Carifta Games and the calendar

For the next two years, our junior track and field team won't have the Carifta Games the very week after the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships. In fact, in four of the next five years, Jamaica should be able to build a week of rest in between Carifta and Champs with ease.

To coincide with school holidays, the Games always fall at Easter time, and in the next five years, Good Friday falls on April 19, April 10, April 2, April 15 and April 7. Except in 2021, it shouldn't be too hard to schedule an intervening week, and, in some cases, two, for our youngsters to rest and recover from their exertions at Championships. Rest and a chance for baton-passing practice would surely optimise their Carifta performances and would avert injury.

In 2021, however, with Easter and the Games arriving as early as they did this year, the only option will be to move Champs up a week.

There probably isn't anyone who denies the need for rest. For the stragglers, let the defense present Antonio Watson and Rahiem Scott. Both boys stopped in their individual Carifta 400-metre races in Easter Saturday. Yet, both ran without visible ill effects on their respective 4x400-metre relays on Easter Monday. Two days of rest made all the difference.

Objective

To be fair to the organisers of track and field in this country, it has long been their objective to plug in this extra week of rest where possible. Last year, for example, Championships ended on April 1, and Carifta started on April 15. Now, they have three years to create a 2021 schedule that builds a buffer between Champs and Carifta when they arrive in that year.

As with Kevona Davis this year, coaches and the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association will have to work together to send only fit and rested athletes to the Games in the years to come. Sadly, televised trackside interviews revealed that some injured athletes actually competed for Jamaica. At least one other made the trip, though injured.

That not only endangers their own prospects, but blocks other athletes from the major benefit Carifta gives our juniors - the invaluable experience of competing for the country at the international level. That is one of the building blocks of the success Jamaica has enjoyed at the senior level. It stands as testimony to the wisdom of Barbadian Austin Sealy, who founded the Games in 1972, and of those who see to it that Jamaica makes the trip year after year.

- Hubert Lawrence has made notes at trackside since 1980.