This year’s ISSA table tennis competition starts on Wednesday with action among urban area schools, while play in the rural area competition commences on January 23.

As usual, both Urban and Rural champions will be crowned in four categories — Under-19 Boys and Girls and Under-16 Boys and Girls — and these teams will then face-off to decide the all-island champions.

A home-and-away format will be used in the preliminary rounds, which is scheduled to be completed near the end of February.

Th competition has attracted some 31 schools, up from 29 last year, comprising 16 urban and 15 rural schools. The list includes five new entrants in Ascot High, Merl Grove High, St Catherine High, Irwin HIgh and York Castle High.

Urban U-19 Girls’ teams: defending champions Campion, Immaculate, Ardenne, Merl Grove and St Catherine.

Five teams will play in a round-robin format in one group, with the top four qualifying for the semi-finals.

Urban U-16 Girls’ teams (comprising eight teams divided into two groups):

Group 1: defending champions Ardenne High, Hillel High, Norman Manley High and Ascot High.

Group 2: Wolmer’s Girls’, Immaculate, St Catherine and Merl Grove. The top two finishers from each group will progress to semi-finals.

Boys’ Group 1: Kingston College, Calabar, Jamaica College, St Jago, Norman Manley and Ascot. KC, Calabar and JC will contest under-19 while all six schools will play in under-16.

KC are defending under-19 champions.

Boys’ Group 2 – Campion, Wolmer’s Boys’, Hillel, St George’s College and Gaynstead. Wolmer’s Boys’, Hillel and St George’s will play in the U-19 section while all five teams will contest the U-16 competition. Campion are the defending U-16 champions.

In the rural section, schools are divided into zones and zone winners in each category will advance to the robin finals. Second-placed teams in the zones will qualify for round robin semi-finals, from which the top performers will advance to join the finalists.

Rural school are split into Central Zone 1, Central Zone 2, Western Zone, North Eastern Zone and Eastern Zone.

Central Zone 1 comprises Cross Keys High, Belair School, deCarteret College and Munro Colege, with all four contesting the Boys’ U-19.

Cross Keys and deCarteret will contest the Girls’ U-19, while Belair, deCarteret and Munro will play in Boys’ U-16. Cross Keys and Belair are defending champions in the Boys’ U-19 and U-16, respectively.

Central Zone 2 has Manchester, Glenmuir, Holmwood and Clarendon, with all four schools playing both Boys’ U-19 and U-16, while Manchester and Glenmuir will contest the Girls’ U-19. Glenmuir are defending Girls’ U-19 champions.

Central Zone Girls’ under-16 contains defending champions deCarteret, Manchester and Glenmuir High.

Western Zone: Cornwall and Irwin, both playing Boys U-16.

North Eastern Zone – St Mary High, Dinthill and York Castle. Dinthill have entered all four teams, while St Mary High have entered both U-19 teams and York Castle, both U-16 teams.

Eastern Zone – Titchfield and St Thomas Technical, each playing in all four categories.

Defending all-island champions are Kingston College for the Boys’ U-19; Glenmuir for the Girls’ U-19, Belair for the Boys’ U-16 and Ardenne for the Girls’ U-16.