Following on the success of Saturday’s first track and field meet held in Jamaica since the onset of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in March, the MVP Track Club will make some adjustments, mainly on the start time, if it were to get permission to stage another meet this weekend at the Jamaica College’s Ashenheim Stadium in Kingston.

Bruce James, president of MVP Track Club, told the Jamaica Observer that the club would push the start time back by two hours in an attempt to get better competition conditions for the sprinters who battled strong headwinds last weekend.

Despite running into a headwind, reigning World Champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce got off to a fast opening in her delayed start to the track and field season, running a world-leading 11.00 seconds (-2.2m/s) to win the women’s 100m at Saturday’s Velocity Fest 2020 at Jamaica College.

“Because of the strong negative winds that the athletes experienced in the sprints we are hoping to receive approval for the meet to be run later in the day,” James said.

“Last week we went from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm; this weekend we are hoping to go from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm and this time we have to be under the lights when the wind conditions will be more favourable for the athletes to run even faster.”

Strong trailing winds, over 4.00 metres per seconds, double the allowable limit for results to be legal, pushed the long jumpers and saw World Champion Tajay Gayle recording an 8.52m (4.5m/s) effort to win.

“The number one priory in getting permission from the various government ministries to allow us to stage this meet was the health and welfare of the athletes, the coaches and the officials,” James said. “As such we had to follow very strict protocols as outlined by the Ministry of Health and Wellness under the Disaster Risk Management Act order number 9, which came into effect on July 1.”

The meet was held behind closed doors with only athletes, coaches and other officials being allowed into the venue with spectators and the media being locked out. James said, “Everybody entering the Ashenheim Stadium had to wear a mask had to be sanitised and had to be temperature-checked. After that we had a situation where the athletes, when they were warming up or competing, were then allowed to remove their masks.”

They also used protocols suggested by World Athletics and the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA). “The blocks and anything else that anybody else was going to touch was sanitised in between each race,” James said, as he listed a set of innovations that were also used.

No number bibs were used. “Again reducing the touch points,” James said. “Also the call room was not necessary, in that generally athletes go to a call room before going to run, but because the meet was run strictly on a time basis, say at 4:00 pm the 200m was going to be run, you were to report to the start line directly, so that there was no congregating in a call room.”

There was no paper at the meet as everything was online. “We had a streaming service in place as well so we were video recording the events, so we did all we could do to ensure that there were much reduced touch points and the health and safety of all concerned was number one priority,” he said, adding that representatives of the Ministry of Health and Wellness were on hand “to ensure we were following the required protocols”, and also that the police made periodical checks to make sure none of the protocols were being breached.

Fraser-Pryce was running her first 100m race of the year after just two 60m races — one at the Milo Western Relays at G C Foster in mid-February and another a week later in Glasgow, Scotland — and she easily beat Shashalee Forbes of Sprintec (11.49 seconds) in the second of two heats, while Bahamian Anthonique Strachan was third in 11.84 seconds.

Despite being denied the world lead because of the illegal wind, Gayle’s best legal jump of 8.23m was good enough for him to take over fifth place on the World Athletics performance table.

Gayle’s MVP training partner, former national champion Ramone Bailey, was second with a wind-aided 7.54m (4.5m/s) and The University of the West Indies, Mona’s Domon Williams was third with 7.46m (4.8m/s).

Shericka Jackson won the women’s 200m with a season’s best 22.89 seconds (-2.2m/s), fourth best in the world, one place behind Edwin Allen High schoolgirl Kevona Davis, while Olympic Champion Elaine Thompson-Herah was second on Saturday in 22.98 seconds (-2.2m/s) with Forbes third in 23.45 seconds (-2.2m/s).

Sprintec’s Tovea Jenkins won the 400m with a season’s best 53.83 seconds, ahead of MVP’s Junelle Bromfield (54.06 seconds) and Nikita Tracey of Pelicans TC in 55.15 seconds.

Megan Tapper of Puma won the 100m hurdles in 13.25 seconds (-1.9m/s) ahead of Amoi Brown of MVP in 13.46 seconds, as Shanette Allison of G C Foster failed to complete the race.

MVP’s Janieve Russell held off Sprintec’s Ronda Whyte in the women’s 400m hurdles, winning with 57.29 seconds to Whyte’s 57.97 seconds.

Tissanna Hickling jumped to fifth in the world rankings when she won the women’s long jump with 6.60m (1.4m/s) ahead of Jessica Noble’s 5.99m (0.9m/s), the latter getting only two legal jumps.

World Championships medallist Shanieka Ricketts took the triple jump with 14.11m (-0.9m/s) with Pelicans TC teammate Sandisha Antoine second with 13.13m (-1.0m/s).

Nesta Carter won an ordinary men’s 100m in 10.38 seconds (-1.4m/s) just beating Tyquendo Tracey (10.39 seconds) and Romario Williams third also in 10.39 seconds, all in the fifth heat.

Julian Forte won the 200m in 20.71 seconds (-2.9m/s), Rasheed Dwyer was second in 21.06 seconds, and Williams third in 21.07 seconds.

Akani Slater of G C Foster was the winner in the men’s 400m, clocking 46.79 seconds, getting to the tape ahead of Demar Murray (47.21 seconds), while Malik James-King was third in 47.37 seconds.

Domon Williams won the men’s triple jump with 15.46m (-1.1m/s), beating Tevin Dunn with 15.21m (-0.6m/s).