JAMAICA’s combined martial arts team has called into training a ‘High Potential’ junior squad of Under-20 fighters, sponsored by Everlast, for transition into its senior unit under the guidance of coach Jason McKay, founder and former captain of the combined team.

Selectees include schoolboys from Calabar, Kingston College, Jamaica College and the University of the West Indies’ Akino Lindsay, who holds an International Sports Kick-boxing Association’s World Association World Championship gold medal.

“This is our first chance to formalise a programme that exposes a junior squad to advance training, thanks to the sponsorship of world-leading brand, Everlast,” McKay said recently.

“Sponsorship of the High Potential team covers competitions and actual management. The team will function just as the senior male and female combined teams operate, drawing talent from karate and tae kwon do,” McKay explained.

“Similarly, to be sponsored, members will have to adhere to strict attendance at training sessions with expectations to compete internationally at various world championships, the International Taekwon-Do Federation’s Pan Am Championships and, of course, our signature tournament, the world’s biggest martial arts event, the United States Open,” he added.

Explaining the need to identify talent to draft into the High Potential team, McKay, who founded the combined team in 2001, said, similar to every other sport, high-intensity training has to start from the junior ranks.

“This new programme identifies talent regardless of rank, whichever colour belts they might hold, to be selected as part of planning for the future of the combined team,” he pointed out.

“These are fighters who have done well on the local and international circuits but, in some cases, do not have enough points to make the top 10 of the combined team or are too young to be considered for selection.

“For example, Lindsay — who did not have the required points nor mandatory black belt accreditation, which he should get this year — but he has won a title at a senior world championship as a coloured belt and is considered a future great in the sport,” added McKay, who coaches the female combined team and manages the male unit while still competing on the international stage.

“We’ve also been very conscious of the fact that our fighters will age out of competition. We’ve been lucky they have been replaced by fighters out of [the] high school programme. However, we can’t depend on super talent such as Kenneth Edwards and Nicholas Dusard. We need to make talented fighters great,” he said.