It’s all set to go for the 40th staging of the prestigious Gibson McCook Relays at the National Stadium where there will be 782 competing teams, more than 100 competitors in individual events, 100 relay races, six flat events and five field events, making it one of the best in the western hemisphere.

Ryan Peralto Jnr, an executive member of the Gibson McCook Relays organising committee, said everything is in place for another magnificent relay carnival.

“It’s all set. Everything is in place and we are just looking forward to some nice and exciting stuff. It’s a little windy, the guys will fight coming down the straight, but it will be a great day,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Over 3,500 athletes are expected to turn out for the relay spectacle, with a team from Namibia set to participate.

Last year, the legendary Usain Bolt surprised and turned up for his Racers Track Club, where they lost the 4x100m to the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech), and Peralto is not too optimistic that the world’s fastest man along with the elite athletes will turn up.

“The teams have put in the names. We have seen the names like Bolt, Shelly (Fraser-Pryce), Asafa (Powell) and those guys, but whether they, in fact, do run, will depend on the strategies of the teams and where people are in their training programmes,” said Peralto.

“For the elite athletes, it is still early days so it will depend on the coaching decisions. But many of the athletes feel like this is the first place where they did their running so they try to make it. We do expect to see some of those names out there,” he added.

The boys’ 4x400m high school preliminaries will get the relays off and running with defending champions St Jago drawn in heat three. Calabar High are in heat five, while Kingston College will be challenged by St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) and Wolmer’s Boys’ in heat four.

The number of championship events has been increased from 10 to 13, with the inclusion of the girls’ 4×200 and the boys’ 4×200 for classes one and two.

“In addition, we are giving gold, silver and bronze medals and we are reminding the teams don’t run away, but get your medals after you run your events,” said Peralto.

The best performing boys’ and girls’ schools will get $100,000 worth of Digicel prizes, and the best performers of the meet will get the Teddy McCook trophy and $150,000.

Last year KC and Edwin Allen High’s girls were the top performing schools, but Calabar, Jamaica College, Holmwood Technical, STETHS and St Jago will be looking to topple them both.