For the 19th staging of the Wesley Powell Track Meet, competition director David Riley says that he is targetting a return to pre-pandemic levels with strong crowd support to see the results of junior and collegiate athletes’ background training ahead of the 2023 season.
Riley was speaking at the meet’s launch on Wednesday, which will take place on December 10 at Excelsior High School with 71 events on offer including over-the-distance events. The meet has been the foundation of the development of many of Jamaica’s senior athletes. It has also been a meet where new protocols have been experimented with and applied to the upcoming season.
For this year, the majority of the focus will be to manage the crowd level which is expected as the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in fans not being able to attend last year. Riley is hoping that they can strike a balance of having the full complement of support, as well as the protocols that were tested and used during the COVID-19 era of meets.
“What we are doing is to try to return the meet to the pre-pandemic situation where we had spectators. Last year we didn’t have to cater a lot to spectators. This year we will. We are looking forward to getting back the excitement and the noise because last year it was kind of quiet,” Riley told The Gleaner. “Taking some of the lessons and applying them and knowing what we can apply to move forward because safety and security are still issues to deal with. And competition is still important and how those two work together is certainly an area that we are concerned with.”
Before then, a workshop will be held on December 2 specifically for coaches that give mental health support, something that Riley said is crucial for the personal development of coaches.
“We have not done much for coaches and coaches are under stress. Coaches have issues and helping the coaches to navigate the space even as we try to get athletes to perform at their best is an issue that we are happy to address,” Riley said.
The meet has seen experimentation in procedure which has become the norm, such as online streaming and electronic registration and Riley said he was proud that the meet would continue that blueprint for the overall evolution of the sport.
“This is the first meet that will stream live on the Internet, the first meet that went fully with electronic registration and electronic timing. We know our role and we play that role well and we have a very good operation to make some of those things a reality and we look forward to the role that we play in the overall development of track,” Riley said.
The meet will also honour Olympian Grace Jackson, Edna Atkinson and Marie Tavares for their contribution to Jamaican track and field, as well as to the Excelsior High School community.
Published in the Jamaica Gleaner on November 26, 2022
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