Defending boys champion Calabar High School was abuzz with activity on Thursday when LIME took the fun and excitement of its ‘Champs Pep Rally’ to the institution’s Red Hills Road campus.

Freestyle DJs ruled the roost as the confident, talented and articulate youngsters belted out lyrics in celebration of their preferred local athletes — the ones they think will shine at Champs 2015 come March 24-28.

LIME is a major sponsor of the annual Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships, thought to be the world’s most riveting and highly competitive athletics meet at the high school level.

Calabar Principal Alberto Corcho was front and centre of the celebratory activities and oozed extreme confidence that the green-and-black-clad boys will retain their title, and in the process lift the coveted Mortimer Geddes Trophy.

“We are defending champions and we are going to win again,” the confident Corcho said. “There is no doubt about what will happen that Saturday afternoon, so we are asking all our past students, all our students and all our well-wishers to come out and help us to celebrate another win at the end of [the] Championships.”

Calabar’s most popular athlete at the moment, Michael O’Hara, smiled and rocked approvingly as his schoolmates celebrated him in song. The sprinter, while confident, was not as enthusiastic as his principal.

“I feel confident, but not fully. Our class three is an issue. They are working on that before Champs,” he outlined. “Personally, I am feeling good. Training is going well and I am healthy, fit and fine (and) you can expect good things from me,” he said.

O’Hara said he is not sure, but most likely will be competing in the 100m, 200m, sprint hurdles and the sprint relay.

Meanwhile, rising star Christopher Taylor is also contemplating a close championship among the schools.

“We have a 50-50 chance to win because if we make a mistake, KC can pass us,” he noted. “We have to be focused in the field and on the track.”

Principal Corcho believes that LIME’s initiative involving the school is a big boost in more ways than one.

“It is a positive move for LIME to go into the schools and promote the Champs through Pep Rallies,” he opined.

“We (ISSA) have a good product, and LIME is helping us to market that product and we are pleased with that. We want to say to everyone out there to come to the Championships.

“Kudos to LIME for doing what they are doing in the schools, (as) they are going in the schools to get the grade seven boys to know what is going to happen. They have also been donating well- needed funds to the schools.”

Corcho said each year the budget goes up at respective schools and this year it will be massive. “This year it will cost anywhere between five to six million dollars to prepare and run the Champs machinery from September 2014 up to Champs 2015. We, therefore, ask all associated with Calabar to support the LIME brand, so they give even more back to the education landscape in Jamaica,” he concluded.