President of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) Garth Gayle has suggested that his executive would be willing to bid to stage a World Athletics World Indoor Championships at the Montego Bay Conference Centre.

Gayle, who recently attended that staging of the three-day event in Belgrade, Serbia, where Jamaica won a gold and two bronze medals, said the resort city had all the necessary amenities to stage the championships.

“The MoBay Conference Centre could be a venue that could be turned into an indoor track and field facility. Why can’t we host a World Indoor Championships, [as] Montego Bay has all the amenities — the hotels, transportation, the airport and that is most of the critical things needed for the successful staging of a world indoor championships,” he said.

Jamaica has hosted one World Athletics championships — the 2002 World Under-20 Championships (then called the World Juniors) in Kingston.

The Montego Bay Conference Centre has staged several international events, including martial arts events, the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) World Cup in 2014 and the International Sport Karate and Kickboxing Association (ISKA) Amateur World Championships two years later, as well as the Jamaica Classic NCAA Division One basketball tournaments.

The JAAA boss also noted that he could assemble a team to meet with the authorities to pursue that development, according to a release from the track and field federation.

Falling short of hosting an international championships, Gayle said setting up an indoor track here would assists our athletes in preparing for indoor track and field competitions.

He rated the Jamaican team’s performance in Belgrade as “good”, pointing out that “[most of the local-based] Jamaicans does not have the opportunity like the Europeans to run ‘on the boards’ in indoor facilities and setting up the 200m track would be a big help”.

“We had two individual bronze medals and then to win the women’s 4x400m relays augurs well for our track and field,” Gayle pointed out, “we placed two positions higher than the last one, in 12th position, “but of more importance, we were third on the points counts and that allows us to have more athletes invited for the next world indoors,” said Gayle.

Jamaicans won bronze medals — Kimberly Williams in the women’s triple jump and Stephenie-Ann McPherson in the women’s 400m event, with the latter running the anchor leg on the Mile Relay team that pulled off an upset in the final.

Meanwhile, Gayle gave the organisers of the championships a big thumbs up.

“My assessment of the World Indoor Championship, the host country with the guidance of the World Athletics, pulled off an excellent show… the arena was well attended,” he said.

— Paul Reid