Jamaica’s Racers Grand Prix has been upgraded to

Gold status by World Athletics for the 2020 World Athletics Continental Tour,

which is slated to begin next May.

The Racers Grand Prix, which was established in

2016 and was the brainchild of Glen Mills, president of Racers Track Club – the

home of Usain Bolt at the time — has established itself as one of the best

track and field meetings in the Western Hemisphere.

World Athletics, the world governing body,

announced details of the 2020 World Athletics Continental Tour, a series of the

world’s best one-day meetings outside the rich Diamond League.

The Continental Tour will be divided into three

levels – Gold, Silver and Bronze – whose status will be determined by the

quality of competition and prize money on offer.

World Athletics is investing in the Gold level

meetings to increase the number of high-quality competitive opportunities

available to showcase our sport’s best athletes.

Jamaica’s Racers Grand Prix is scheduled for

Saturday, June 13, at the National Stadium, and Mills, who is also chairman of

the organising committee, was ecstatic to be recognised by World Athletics.

“We are very excited and pleased that the world

body has recognised the type of meet that we have been putting on, which has

been of the highest quality,” said Mills.

At the second staging of the Racers Grand Prix,

dubbed ‘Salute to a Legend’ which was a tribute to Bolt, not many meets had the

pulling power to have three other world record holders at the same time in Bolt

(100m, 200m), South African Wayde van Niekerk (400m) and Kenyan David Rudisha

(800m), plus Olympic champions Mo Farah (5000m, 10,000m) and Christian Taylor

(Triple jump).

“For them to include us in such a prestigious

series is an acknowledgement of what we have been able to achieve over the four

years of staging this meet,” said Mills.

Host broadcasters have been appointed for each

meeting, and Infront, the tour’s international TV rights holder, will sell the

rights into markets around the world, broadening the reach and appeal of the

meet.