A powerful 40-athlete Jamaican track and field aggregation is currently finalising preparations to regain the Biennial Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT) Games title they lost to Barbados in 2012.

The 15th staging of the CUT Games will be held in Trinidad and Tobago between July 25-26 and Jamaica will be hell bent on reversing that 37-point loss to the Bajans when they host the event at the National Stadium.

The Games, which was started in 1986 with athletes ranging from ages nine to 15, will participate in Under-9, Under-11, Under-13 and Under-15 categories

Despite topping the table with 42 medals to Barbados’ 41, Jamaica finished second behind the champions, who amassed a combined boys and girls total of 459.5 points to Jamaica’s 422.5 and Trinidad and Tobago on 364 points.

Jamaica is hoping to improve on their 15 gold; 14 silver and 13 bronze medals and head coach Arthur Edwards believes the selected athletes from the JTA/Sagicor Championships and the Boys’ and Girls’ Championship will restore Jamaica to the top.

“We have been winning since 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010 and we are expecting to challenge for the championship and we will be right up there, if not to the top, very close to the top,” Williams told the Jamaica Observer.

“Whenever Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad compete, it’s a fierce rivalry, so we are taking it very seriously,” he added, while watching the athletes going through their drills at the National Stadium East field on Tuesday.

The young athletes will be participating in 80m, 100m 150m, 200m, 300m, 400m, 800m and 1200m open, 4x100m, long jump, high jump, javelin and cricket ball throw which is a prelude to javelin. Significantly, each country can only enter one person per event.

The CUT Track and Field Championships was a result of the CUT’s recognition of the need to provide the young athletes aged 8-15 years with some regional competition.

There was also recognition by the CUT that sports have a significant role to play in the regional integration process. These particular Championships would bring together the students and teachers of the Caribbean for a few days of friendly competition, camaraderie and co-operation.

It was first organised in Barbados in 1986 with Anguilla, Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Guyana, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines first participating in the inaugural meet for the Jean Perisco Trophy.

Jamaica first entered in 2000 with the likes of Markino Buckley, who went on to represent the island at the Olympics in the 400m hurdles. Fellow Olympian Nickel Ashmeade also got his feet wet at these games, along with the Wolmer’s High pair of Jonelle Smith and Christoff Bryan in later years.

It has been the breeding ground for some of the Caribbean’s most outstanding track and field athletes before they moved on to the CAC Age Group Championships, the CAC Juniors, the Carifta Games, the CAC Senior Championships, the CAC Games, the Pan American Games and, of course, the Olympic Games.

This year, the outstanding Calabar High Class Three duo of Tyreke Wilson and Dejour Russell will lead the boys’ charges with the very promising sprinter Kiara Grant of the Convent of Mercy, Alpha Academy on the girls’ side.