BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE St. Kitts-Nevis Amateur Athletics Association (SKNAAA) has stated that this weekend’s National Junior Championships & Carifta Trials are on track to be a hotly contested display of the nation’s top young athletes.
Having been reduced to a single day of competition this year, SKNAAA Vice-President Lester Hanley said in a recent press conference that he expects the March 6 National Junior Championships to be very fan friendly.
“We are trying to keep it as organized as possible, filled with energy and filled with activity to give the spectators the kind of show we think they should expect when they come to the Silver Jubilee Anniversary Stadium,” he stated as one of the main reasons that the event had been reduced from two days to just one this year.
While many young athletes are focused on this month’s TDC/Coca-Cola/LIME Interschool Championships, Hanley said that added emphasis has been placed on the National Junior Championships because this year’s Carifta qualifying standards are “very tough” and cost restraints will limit the size of the eventual team.
“This year we want to take with us eight qualifiers where we will almost be certain that we will make it to the semi-final and final rounds, and even the medal podium.
“We have done some preliminary cost evaluations for what it would cost to move a team of eight to 10 persons from St. Kitts to the Cayman Islands…and it makes no sense to say we are taking a team of 30 or 40 because at that point we are then looking at chartering an aircraft,” Hanley said.
SKNAAA President Glenville Jeffers echoed these sentiments and encouraged all of the Federation’s young athletes to turn up for this weekend’s competition.
“We have been doing this meet for the last two or three years and we are not seeing the number of athletes coming out to this championship as we are seeing for the Interschools. Most of the kids who are in this age group still look at the Interschool as being their main competition.
“But to have two shots [at Carifta qualification], you must take part in the National Junior Championships,” Jeffers stated. “The athletes must now stand up and be counted at the National Junior Championships and reach their A standards because that is the bar the association is setting.”
The National Junior Championships & Carifta Trials will begin on Saturday (March 6) at 12:30 p.m. with an opening ceremony, after which competition will begin at 1 p.m. and is expected to run straight through to the evening with very few interruptions.
Seating for the event will be open and admission prices have been set at EC $5 for children and EC $ 10 for adults.
