For those attending the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs), the “Champs” magazine is one of the hottest selling items at the National Stadium but sometimes it comes with controversy.

The annual magazine, this year dubbed Fast Tracker 2024, has several features regarding “Champs” including event and points predictions, athlete highlights and messages from sponsors and organisers ISSA.

Consultant and Editor Gregory Spalding told the Jamaica Observer that much goes into producing it.

“It’s more of an investment in time and the future of Jamaican athletics, in particular the cohort of athletes in high school,” he said. “The aim of the magazine is to propagate what they’re doing and where they are in their development. We look for the highlights from each class, we invest in every single event and some of it is gut feeling, some is some of what the persons would have done.”

However, this year’s magazine drew the ire of Hydel High as the Observer learnt that members and supporters of the team were unhappy that the defending champions were not featured on the cover.

Five athletes from five different schools grace the cover, including 2023 runners up Edwin Allen with Thieanna Lee Terrelonge.

But Spalding has defended the design, saying the standout athletes heading into Champs are always featured and being a reigning champion isn’t a requisite of making the cover.

“Last year, we would have featured a Hydel person [Alana Reid] but Hydel wasn’t the defending champion and in prior years, Hydel athletes have featured prominently on the cover,” he said. “So, respectfully, it’s not really about that but about the athlete that’s going to have the pull. We gauge the track and field community as the season goes by and we identify those persons that are the major talking points. Persons this year have been a pull as far as communication is concerned and persons being upbeat about these persons. No ill feeling for Hydel, they’ll have someone again in the future, I’m sure.”

Controversy aside, Spalding feels vindicated because of the magazine’s popularity among fans in the stadium despite being costly and time-consuming to produce.

“It does give some amount of satisfaction but it also gives a deal of responsibility,” he said. “We have to get it right or close to right. We also like when there’s a point of contention, persons arguing that this is not how they see it and all of that and it creates a buzz of activity throughout the championships.”

Although the physical magazine has had a sense of exclusivity over the years, fans may be able to access it virtually in the coming years.

“It’s under development,” Spalding said. “In fact, there is a version but it’s not ready for publicity because there has to be the safety aspect of it, it’s not something that can be shared readily so we chose not to this year. But in the near future, I can see where that is going to be necessary.”