Skeen, Robinson ruled ineligible for Champs
Odean Skeen’s disqualification for a false start in the Class One 100m final at last year’s ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships at the National Stadium was to be his final individual appearance at the over a century old event.
A day earlier on the Thursday night, Skeen had placed ninth overall in the semi-finals of the Boys’ Class One 200m and missed the finals that was set for Saturday afternoon.
It was confirmed Thursday that Skeen of Wolmer’s Boys’ School, the 2010 Youth Olympics 100m champion and 2012 IAAF World Junior 100m bronze medallist and Calabar High’s Demar Robinson, silver medallist in the Class One high jump and triple jump Open were ineligible for the March 12-16 renewal of ‘Champs’.
Reports are that both athletes were declared academically ineligible, but efforts to get responses from representatives of both schools yesterday were fruitless.
Calabar High School’s head coach Michael Clarke told Jamaica Observer he would not comment on the issue and referred the newspaper the Champs’ governing body. “It would be best if you put those questions to ISSA.”
According to ISSA rules, student athletes must maintain a 45 per cent average in at least four subjects and an attendance record of 80 per cent in the school year to be eligible to represent the school in any sports under the ISSA umbrella.
The duo is just the latest in an ever growing list of top athletes who have missed ‘Champs’ for one reason or the other over the past few seasons, and just last year St Elizabeth Technical High pulled high jumper Peta-Gay Reid, a former CARIFTA Games gold medallist from their line up after she was declared ineligible on two grounds, academics and attendance.
Skeen, who was a surprise third in the boys’ 100m at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona, Spain, last year, was expected to feature in what is expected to be a mouth watering Class One boys’ 100m final against defending champion Delano Williams of Munro College, and Odail Todd of Green Island High.
While Wolmer’s, winners of Boys’ Champs in 2010 were not expected to challenge for the title, defending champions Calabar High and former champions Kingston College are expected to go down to the wire, and the loss of points that Robinson was expected to earn could affect the chances of the Red Hills Road based school.