Perennial winners St Mary High School will once again start favourite to retain their Eastern Championships titles as action begins today inside National Stadium.

The two-day Eastern Championships will be the last stop for qualification to the Digicel Grand Prix Final set for March 14, where teams will be hunting the $1-m prize money.

The three other regional champions have already been decided with Rusea’s High School girls and St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) boys crowned Western champions. Kingston College and Excelsior High School girls are the Corporate Area champs, and Edwin Allen High School girls and St Jago High School boys are the Central champions.

In the boys’ section, St Mary will have most to fear from Buff Bay High School, the team they defeated by 31 points last year. St Thomas Technical High School, Oberlin High School, Port Antonio High School, and Titchfield High School should be making things competitive.

While the boys’ category should be close once again, St Mary High School should be comfortable winners in the girls’ section, having won by a massive 145 points last year.

Their biggest danger will be Buff Bay High School, Titchfield High School, Morant Bay High School, Oberlin High School, and Glengoffe High School.

The Digicel Grand Prix Athletics Championships comprises 10 events. The events are the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, long jump, high jump, discus, 4x400m, medley relay, and 400m hurdles.

For the Digicel Grand Prix Athletics Championships, athletes are placed in two age categories. For the males Class One athletes compete in one age category, while Class Two and Class Three athletes compete in the other age category, and for females Class One and Class two compete in one age category, and Class Three and Class Four in the other age category).

This means that only the fastest time in a Grand Prix event in each age category at each of the four regional meets automatically qualifies for the grand finale at G C Foster Classics. As a result, the four automatic winners in each of the 10 Digicel Grand Prix events from the four regional meets will be joined by the next four best to compete in the Grand Prix Finals at G C Foster College on March 14.

— Howard Walker