Mike Sands, president of North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC), will be the special guest at the Gibson McCook Relays (GMR) on Saturday.

Sands took over the NACAC presidency from Victor Lopez in July 2019, after repelling the challenges of Alain Jean-Pierre (Haiti), Claudia Perez (Mexico), Jamaica’s Warren Blake, and Ephraim Serrette of Trinidad and Tobago.

It will be Sands’ first visit to Jamaica since becoming head of NACAC. The former president of The Bahamas Association of Athletic Association will leave the island on Sunday, March 1.

The 67-year-old Bahamian once held the national records of the 100m to 400m and twice represented his country at the Olympic Games in 1972 and 1976, where he served as flag bearer on both occasions.

He was the first-ever gold medallist for the Bahamas at the 1975 Central American and the Caribbean Championship.

The 44th staging of the Gibson McCook Relays will also see Dr Akshai Mansingh as the special lecturer at the Howard Aris Memorial Lecture at the University of Technology, Jamaica on Thursday, February 27.

Dr Mansingh has been a lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Sports Medicine in Radiology, Anaesthetics and Intensive Care at UWI, Mona since 2007, as well as the programme director and course author for the campus’ MSc Sports Medicine degrees (for physicians and physiotherapists) since 2006.

He is also the author of numerous publications in his various specialisations and has written on Methods for Injury Surveillance in International Cricket, among many other cricket and sport science themes.

Outside his academic pursuits, Dr Mansingh is chief medical officer of both Cricket West Indies and the Caribbean Premier League. He was a member of the inaugural International Cricket Council Medial Committee and is a member of its Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee.

He has been a cricket analyst and commentator for over 20 years. He also serves as a member of several regional and international societies, including Caribbean Orthopaedic Association, Jamaican Orthopaedic Association, American, Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

The Gibson McCook Relays is the longest-running relay carnival in the country, and at one point, was second in the region only to the Penn Relays.

The cost for Bleachers is $500, with students set to receive an additional discount as they can purchase tickets for only $300. The cost for the grandstand finish line is $3,000 and $2,000 for regular Grandstand.

— Howard Walker