MONTEGO BAY, St James — IN addition to points earned towards the lucrative Milo Junior Grand Prix series, high school teams taking part in Saturday’s 32nd Milo Western Relays at the GC Foster Sports College, Angels, St Catherine, will also share $300,000 from prizes in the 4x400m and 4x800m relays.

At Thursday’s press launch at the Jamaica Grandiosa Hotel in Montego Bay, Meet Director Ray Harvey announced that the top four high schools in the longer relays would earn cash prizes.

After paying out cash prizes in the 4x800m last season, the organisers of the meet have added the 4x400m, Harvey said.

The winners of both high school boys’ and high school girls’ 4x400m and the 4x800m Open races will get $40,000; the second-place winner will get $20,000, third-place winner $10,000 and fourth-place winner $5,000.

Dwight Anderson, a former Kingston College and Jamaica quarter-miler from the 1960s, will sponsor the 4x400m which will see the return of two races for the females — one for high schools and another for clubs and institutions.

In its early stages, there used to be two races but due to a lack of entries, the organisers had taken the decision to combine the races. Harvey said, however, that for the past few years, they had been forced to stage three races in that category and thus the decision to separate the races again.

Custom Marbles and Design is the sponsor for the girls’ 4x800m, while title sponsor Milo will sponsor the boys 4x400m.

Meanwhile, national high school and Carifta Games champions Kemoy Campbell of Bellefield High and Nikita Tracey of Edwin Allen High will be honoured as the outstanding junior achievers of 2009, while physiotherapist Angella McIntosh will be the patron.

Harvey told attendees at Thursday’s launch that after consultations with the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA), the Sports Development Foundation (SDF) and Member of Parliament for North West St James and Minister of Water and Housing Dr Horace Chang, the decision was taken to go ahead with the “drastic change in location”, as the meet will be held outside western Jamaica for only the second time. He added that sponsors Milo “stood behind us in these troublesome, crucial times”.

As a mark of commitment to the longest running relay meet in the island, Milo’s sponsorship representative Suzanne Wilson-Wong announced an increase in her company’s cash sponsorship to $1.5 million, from $1.2 million last year.