Champs 100 could be best ever
If the excitement created over the past three-plus months leading up to tomorrow’s start of the GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Championships is any indication of what is to come over the next four days, Champs 100 will go down as one of the best ever.
Grandstand seats for Friday and Saturday were sold out within hours of going on sale last weekend, and hotel rooms in Kingston will be at a premium as hundreds fly in from all around the globe for the greatest high school track and field meet in the world.
The events get going tomorrow, but the meet will officially get underway later today with what promises to be a glitzy opening ceremony at the National Stadium, which will be free of cost.
Both title races are expected to be close this year with defending champions Kingston College and Calabar High going to the wire in the boys’ section, while the girls of Holmwood Technical are being tested for the first time in eight years since their reign began, with Edwin Allen High seemingly poised to gain their first hold on the title.
Caution will be the watchword, however, and before points can be counted one needs only to look at last year’s meet where Calabar were expected to retain their title, but a series of mistakes and accidents saw them being beaten by arch-rivals Kingston College by a scant 1.5 points after four days and 37 finals.
Holmwood might not be the all-conquering force they were over the past seven renewals of Girls’ Champs, but as veteran head coach Maurice Wilson told the Observer last year: “It is always unwise to count out Holmwood Technical when it matters most.”
Edwin Allen’s Michael Dyke has slowly been building his programme at Frankfield in northern Clarendon and biding his time, but many feel this is his best team ever and the best chance to lift the title.
Despite losing last year’s Class One discus surprise winner Vanessa Levy who now wears the green and yellow of Vere Technical, Edwin Allen should repeat their 1-2 sisters’ quinella in the 400m hurdles with Nikita and Ristananna Tracey, and will be well served throughout all four classes, both on the track and in the field.
They also return with Ann-Marie Duffus, who scored 21 points last year in taking the Class One long jump and heptathlon open, but they would have learned from last year when — tipped to give Holmwood a run for their money — they fell away badly, scoring 203 points and were almost 100 behind Holmwood’s 400.5 points.
Former champions Vere Technical and Manchester High could jostle for the third place with any of several schools — St Jago High, Wolmer’s Girls’ School and St Elizabeth Technical battling to complete the top five positions.
Then there are the spoilers such as Herbert Morrison, who will take a potent Class Two team to the Championships, The Queen’s School and St Andrew High, all bidding to make their marks.
Once again Kingston College, despite losing a lot of points from last year’s team through the departure of key athletes, should fight it out with Calabar for the Mortimer Geddes trophy, but third place could be up for the taking with Wolmer’s Boys’, with their stable of outstanding jumpers, Jamaica College, St Jago High and western champions Munro College all in with a fighting chance.
Champs 2009 was the last time we saw several of our best juniors ever competing in their school colours: the likes of Calabar’s Ramone McKenzie and Herbert Morrison’s Dexter Lee, who both gave up eligibility to chase the millions of dollars on offer in the professional ranks, as well as St Jago’s Nickel Ashmeade, Calabar’s Warren Weir and Kingston College’s Kieron Stewart.
They have made way for the new crop of Champs heroes, and with all due respect to the likes of Wolmer’s Boys’ Dwayne Extoll, Calabar’s Earl Lee, Waquar DaCosta of Jamaica College and other Class One athletes, the stars of this year’s Boys’ Champs could come in a sparkling Class Two batch led by Bridgeport’s Jazeel Murphy, who will be seeking to repeat his first-year Class Two sprint double from last year.
While Murphy has competed sparingly so far this season, his pedigree is no secret, but he is expected to be chased to the line by the likes of the Munro College duo of Adam Cummings and Delano Williams, as well as Green Island’s Odail Todd, who will open some eyes at the meet.
Thanks to an outstanding season from the Calabar High pair of Traves Smikle and Chad Wright and St Hugh’s High’s Candecea Bernard, both national junior records in the discus could be broken this week.
Smikle broke new ground for Jamaican throwers when he won a historic bronze in the discus at the World Youth Championships last year, setting a new national youth record of 61.22m with the 1.5Kilo implement.
This year, however, Smikle, who had set a new NJR 58.88m with the heavier disc at the Junior Pan-American Championships in Trinidad in August, shared the distinction with Wright of breaking that mark no fewer than half a dozen times and achieving the new mark at 59.52m. A mark over 60m now seems a definite possibility.
Bernard, who was upset in the event last year by the Edwin Allen High thrower Vanessa Levy, has raised the bar after throwing 48.71m, breaking a 12-year-old record of 47.44m.
Bernard is, however, still short of the automatic qualifying mark of 47.50m and is expected to go after that mark and push to be the first female thrower to represent Jamaica at an IAAF Junior meet.
Bernard could double in the shot put as well, as she leads all qualifiers so far this season with a 13m-plus effort coming in late January.
Whoever the winners may be in both sections come Saturday night, the signs all point to another brilliant four days of thrills and spills, and this year more than ever, the cliché, ‘who makes the least mistakes will win’, will ring true.