MONTEGO BAY, St James — Such has been western Jamaica’s contribution to track and field that the region fully deserves to be the host of the Lime CARIFTA Games, says chairman of the Local Organising Committee, Neville ‘Teddy’ McCook.

The three day-meet will be held over the Easter weekend, April 23-25 at the Montego Bay Sports Complex at Catherine Hall.

“It is only fair that track and field fans here should see a meet of this nature,” said McCook who is also the president of the North American Central American and Caribbean track and field association (NACAC) and International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) Area Representative.

“We have made a special effort to bring the Games to this region because (you) have produced a lot of good athletes here,” he told last week’s official launch of the 40th staging of the championships.

The CARIFTA Games is the first exposure to international competition for junior athletes from the Caribbean region.

Many acclaimed athletes from the Caribbean including World and Olympic champions Usain Bolt and Veronica Campbell Brown and Michael Frater who are from Trelawny ‘got their feet wet’ at the CARIFTA Games, first held in 1972.

Ray Harvey the Meet Director for the Milo Western Relays who was named as Competitions Director for the meet also hailed the awarding of the event to Montego Bay saying, “We have had world class events here (Western Relays) and now we are stepping up to the next level.”

Jamaica, hosts on five previous occasions – the most recent being 1996 – have dominated the competition, winning an average of just over 70 medals and is expected to dominate once more.

McCook said just over 600 athletes and officials from the 26 member territories were expected in the island for the Games. They will stay at the Games Village- Grand Palladium Hotel in Hanover.

He denied that NACAC under whose umbrella the Games fell had problems in finding a venue.

McCook said several territories including Trinidad and Tobago had stepped up after St Kitts announced last year that they would be unable to host this year’s renewal.

Since Trinidad and Tobago had hosted the NACAC Cross Country championships and NACAC were seeking to assist them in getting a World Championships, they decided not to take it there, McCook said.

News broke last year that St Kitts had withdrawn their bid to host the meet and several other territories including the Bahamas were mooted to be in the running before withdrawing.