Racers Grand Prix upgraded to Gold status
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.
