THE eight-day period, starting last Saturday with the annual Milo Western Relays and ending this Saturday with the combined finals of the Digicel/Hanover Co-op Credit Union County of Cornwall Athletics Association (COCAA) is one of the most anticipated, exciting and exhausting for fans.

The Milo Western Relays brings some of the best athletes in the country to our doorsteps, and we get to see Olympic and World Champions at home — the only time for many fans.

Under the present format of the Western Championships, track fans and journalists would be at the boys’ eliminations at Herbert Morrison on Tuesday, girls’ eliminations at Treasure Beach on Thursday, then back to the Montego Bay Sports Complex on Saturday for the always exciting finals.

Unlike the Western Relays, where we get to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the exploits of the world-rated athletes on show, or those headed for glory at the ISSA Champs, Western Champs is an animal of a different colour and the noise and excitement level is so much higher, given the rooting interest in every single lane of every race.

However, the time has come for the organisers of Western Champs to condense the meet to two days at the Montego Bay Sports Complex.

Gone are the days when there were just a handful of high schools taking part, and both boys’ and girls’ Western Champs could be held in one day.

Thirty-one schools took part in the boys’ eliminations and at least 25 schools will participate in the girls’ eliminations today.

One of the reasons for the three days spread over a week was to give those organising the event time to sort out the entrants, draw heats and then place qualifiers in finals. Another reason was to give the western athletes sufficient preparation for the upcoming Champs and other major meets.

The reasons for holding the meet on consecutive days at the stadium, far outweighs the reasons not to.

If Western Champs is to become the championship meet that everyone wants it to be, then it is time to move away from dirt tracks and uneven surfaces. No matter how level and even the surfaces are, they are still far inferior to the artificial surfaces.

Times run on dirt tracks cannot be compared to those run on the all-weather surfaces, and there is the need for the keeping of two sets of records, which can be confusing at best, when preliminaries are run on one surface, then finals on another.

Grass tracks can vary from one venue to the next, Mannings School’s track was once found to be short by about 15 metres, and some are wildly undulating with ridges and valleys that can hurt athletes who are concentrating on running fast and not having to watch their steps.

With the technology available, tasks that took hours not so long ago, can be accomplished in five minutes or less, and electronic timing systems have all but eliminated most of the work related to placing athletes in the next round.

The need for athletes to compete over three rounds — preliminaries, semi-finals and finals — can be a burden, and two rounds or even one round in the longer events and some field events, is sufficient for the championships.

There are sufficient events every weekend where there are a myriad of meets, some specialised where the athletes can get the necessary practice and competition without trying to cram everything in one or two days.

If we are to continue the development of track and field in the region, COCAA must find improved ways of running Western Champs and give the athletes as much assistance as they can.