Sherone Simpson is patron of TJB virtual 5K run/walk

OLYMPIC and World Championships medallist Sherone Simpson will be the patron for the Team Jamaica Bickle (TJB) fund-raising virtual 5K run/walk event that was launched last Friday. Marvin Anderson, president of the Olympians Association of Jamaica (OAJ), made the announcement during Friday’s virtual launch of the event that will run for two weeks until October 24 and will be hoping to raise US$25,000 to be used by TJB for the welfare of Jamaican students in the USA. It will be the first collaboration between TJB and OAJ since they signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year and Anderson said the event “fits perfectly in what we are hoping to accomplish.”

There are 142 Olympians Associations all over the over the world, Anderson told the press conference, and that the OAJ had a membership of “300 living Olympians”.

He said both associations had pledged in their “historic” agreement to “work in areas that will promote not just events that will broader spread and educate the general pubic about the role of the OAJ, but how we can use each other’s platforms to leverage the organisations”.

Anderson, himself a former World Championships 200m finalist, added: “This virtual 5K fits perfectly in what we are hoping to accomplish, as at the end of the day we serve something that is greater than any individual goals.”

In giving his association’s full support and endorsement, Anderson said, “With the uncertainty of the pandemic that we are in, it is important that we continue to do events that resemble any form of normalcy, and I think what has been going on and the way we have been able to adjust in the sporting landscape, how we maximise the virtual landscape will be very critical in how we move our sporting sector forward.”