The country’s top athletes along with the aspiring ones will be able to commence the track season this Sunday at Eve Leary Sports Club ground in the National Senior Trials.
And the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) has taken the liberty to include juniors and that competition will be run simultaneously with the Senior Trials starting at 10am.
The meet that will be run simultaneously with the senior trials is called the ‘Keep Fit’ youth meet and is designed to keep the youths active while giving them some experience in competition before the National Junior/Youth Championships scheduled from February 29 to March 2.
President of the AAG Claude Blackmore said that the rationale behind the competition was to give the Under-18 athletes a chance to compete before the National Junior/Youth Championships in the absence of the developmental meets which were to be held earlier this month.
“The youths have not had a chance to compete on the track for the year and we cannot just send them into the National Championships without giving them some kind of a warm-up meet. Originally, the developmental meets were scheduled to keep them active but since all of them were rained out we had to fit them in with the Senior Trials,” Blackmore explained.
He also mentioned that the association had adjusted the age requirements to allow persons eighteen years and over to participate in the Senior Trials since they are very few senior competitors.
“The senior categories do not have many athletes and what we have done is to lower the age of senior participation to eighteen and over so that the senior races that usually have just one or two competitors can have more. It will also challenge the younger ones to try to keep up and their timings might improve,” he said.
The ‘Keep Fit’ competition will be for under-18 athletes (born in 1991 or after) and will include the 100m, 400m, and 1500m events for girls and 200m, 800m and 3,000m for boys. There will also be field events for both males and females.
When asked to comment on the early scheduling of the Senior Trials considering that the Senior National Champ-ions are scheduled in April, Blackmore said that the AAG will be using the trials to identify athletes to represent the country at any regional meet which the association may be invited to, as well as to create seeding for the athletes based on their timings.
Among the athletes expected to participate in Sunday’s Senior Trials are Alika Morgan, Rawle Greene, Alicia Fortune, Rhondell ‘Cobra’ Adams, Wayne Harlequin, Trevor Scotland, Jermaine Pilgrim, Afeeze Samad and Denis Horatio, who will be hoping to make a successful transition to the senior category.
