JAAA adjusts to address Doha date
NEXT YEAR, the National Senior Championships will migrate from its usual late June slot to July 25 to 28 inside the National Stadium. That move is a response to the September 28 start date of the 2019 IAAF World Championships. These details were presented this week as part of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) schedule for the upcoming season.
Speaking earlier this week, JAAA president Dr Warren Blake explained, “We’ve decided on the end of July, and it’s really to put it as close to the World Championships as possible.” The move was made to prevent the Nationals being held too far before the World Championships to be an accurate guide for team selection.
CUTTING IT CLOSE
Nevertheless, the late July date for the Nationals comes close to the schedule for the 18th Pan-American Games, which start in Lima, Peru, on July 26, with athletics starting on August 6. The JAAA plans to send a preliminary entry list of all possible candidates in advance.
The 2019 World Championships start in Doha, Qatar, weeks later than the last day of any previous edition. In 1987, the Rome World Championships ended on September 6. That’s the latest last day the IAAF spectacle has seen since its inception in Helsinki, Finland, back in 1983.
With this in mind, the JAAA will be staging more meets at home to give athletes competition as well as a pre-Championships camp.
While the details on the pre-World Championships camp aren’t settled yet, All-Comers meets will be held on May 11, 18 and 25 as well as June 1 to keep locally based athletes sharp for the National Senior Championships.
The dates of the post-Nationals All-Comers meets haven’t been posted yet.
Notable dates on the schedule include Boys and Girls’ Championships, set for March 2630, the Jamaica Invitational on May 4, the renowned Penn Relays, April 24-27 in Philadelphia, the IAAF World Relays in Yokohama, Japan, May 10-11, and the Racers Grand Prix on June 22.
With the Easter holidays arriving in late April, the Carifta Trials will be contested a week after Boys and Girls’ Championships, from April 5-7. The Carifta Games are back again in the Cayman Islands from April 20-22, after being hosted there in 1995 and 2010.