AFTER a one-year absence due to the novel ccotronavirus pandemic, the Camperdown Classic returns today for its 17th staging at the National Stadium starting at 8:30am.

A staple on the local track and field calendar, the Camperdown Classic, which began in 2005, has provided both high school and senior athletes the opportunity to showcase their talents.

With many of the usual meets absent this year, due mainly to lack of sponsorship, the Classic returns with the support of main sponsor Sports Development Foundation (SDF) in addition to GraceKennedy and a number of other sponsors.

The events to be staged today include the 100m for Classes 1 to 4 for girls and boys, and the 100m Open for women and men.

A special 400m for senior athletes only will also be run for both men and women.

As usual, the Racers Track Club is expected to open its season at the meet.

Camperdown past student and former outstanding sprinter, Eric Barrett will be honoured at the meet this year.

The girls will participate in the morning session while the boys will participate in the afternoon. The seniors’ events will also be held in the afternoon.

SDF General Manager Denzil Wilks said that with the plethora of events on the sporting calendar this year, his organisation was prepared to increase its support in various areas to assist with the return of competitive action.

“The pandemic has been around for over two years now and we have been working our way through it. We recognised that given what 2022 was going to turn out like — the World Championships, the Commonwealth Games and numerous other sports, football qualification, males and females — it is a going to be a bumper year so when we prepared our budget, we took that into consideration.

“We did go out of the way to try to ensure that when the various entities would reach out to us, we would be in a position to assist to some extent, and that has been happening. We are responding on a day-by-day basis. We don’t have the lead time that we would normally have and so we have to be responding in very short order,” Wilks explained.

No spectators will be allowed inside the venue but the event will be streamed live on Stridevision on Facebook and YouTube as well as on the Camperdown Classic website.

In addition to the 100m and the 400m there will also be the 800m and 4x100m relays.

— Dwayne Richards