Weir to lace up for Bolt’s XI
JUST as he did at the London Olympics, Warren Weir came on late as Jamaica swept the men’s 200m occupying the top-three spots in the final.
There will be no Yohan Blake this time, but Weir has been a late inclusion and will partner with the fastest man alive in Usain Bolt at the 26th staging of the Bell/Ziadie Football Matches at St George’s College today.
The Heroes Day football extravaganza is set to kick off at 2:00 pm.
Weir, the 200m Olympic bronze medallist, is expected to be part of the Bolt XI, which will have speed to burn as it includes Jermaine Gonzales, Bolt’s brother Sadiki Bolt and singer Christopher Martin.
There will be four teams in a St George’s College Invitational with Nick Ziadie, son of the late Dennis Ziadie in whose honour the game is being played, Brandon Murray, Peter Prendergast, Andrew Thomas and Michael ‘Bedi’ Walker.
A Masters & Celebrities team to be led by Lennie Hyde, includes renown lawyer Ian Wilkinson, West Indies cricketers Wavel Hinds, Chris Gayle and female star Stephanie Taylor.
The fourth team is the Sponsors and Promoters XI and it comprises cricket legend Courtney Walsh, entertainers Luckie D, Idonia, Peter Metro, Tony Curtis and journalists Ralston Hyman, Ian Burnett, Audley Boyd and Rohan Powell to name a few.
The new format of the event will see four teams participating in a round-robin competition. The teams include Masters & Celebrities & Entertainers, St George’s College Invitational, Sponsors and Promoters as well as a special Invitational team to be named.
Each year the proceeds from the event are donated to the improvement of local basic schools and this year’s beneficiary will be the Malvern Basic School.
Other basic schools to have benefited are Paradise Street, Life Tabernacle, Rita Jane Thomas, Franklin Town Church of God, Albert Street and the Weise Road.
This year’s honorees are Tony James, former JFF president; Danny Hawthorne, former FIFA referee; Delroy ‘Nyah’ Garrison, member of the administration team of the Arnett Gardens Football Club and Peter Chevannes, former Jamaica player and St Georges’s College old boy.
The day’s activities will kick off with Bolt’s XI tackling the Masters & Celebrities team before St George’s XI take on the Sponsors and Promoters XI.
The Bell/Ziadie Football Matches have been staged for the past 25 years in celebration of the lives of former Jamaican footballers Jackie Bell and Dennis Zaidie, who both perished in a bus crash in Mexico during the 1986 World Cup.