KINGSTON, Jamaica – A number of slight glitches affected this morning’s start of the 37th staging of the Gibson Relays at the National Stadium in Kingston.

A broken cable prevented electronic timing of early races, and up to 11:30am all results were being hand-timed as technicians worked feverishly to restore the electronic timing devices.

And the late opening of the gates also caused frustration for early patrons at this the first staging of the event without the founder Neville ‘Teddy’ McCook who died recently and will be buried tomorrow.

Action on the track was however not unduly affected, and the appearance of double World Record holder and six time Olympic Games gold medallist Usain Bolt was a bonus for the early arrivals.

Bolt ran the third leg of the Racers Lions 4x400m team, joining Dwight Mullings, Darrion Bent and Demar Murray, clocking 3 minutes 06.9 seconds to beat the Dominican Republic and qualify for this evening’s final.

Defending champions Manchester High lead the qualifiers in the high school boys 4x400m running 3 minutes 14.4 seconds to qualify along with Excelsior High, Munro College, Kingston College, Jamaica College, St Elizabeth Technical, Wolmers Boys and Hydel.

In the girls equivalent Vere Technical with 3:45.7 seconds lead the qualifying heats followed by St Jago, STETHS, Holmwood Technical, Hydel, St Andrew High, Edwin Allen High and St Hugh’s.