By all accounts last week’s staging of the 49th Carifta track and field championships at the National Stadium was a resounding success with no lesser than World Athletics boss Seb Coe and NACAC Supremo Mike Sands saying it will rank amongst the very best.

After a two-year hiatus because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Jamaica took on the championships at short notice after Guyana, who were originally set to host it, was forced to pull out.

As Jamaica did in 2011, they took up the slack and were not the most gracious hosts as they won a record 92 medals (45 gold, 29 silver and 18 bronze), way ahead of the next best, The Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands who both won four gold medals, while Trinidad and Tobago managed the second most medals with 23.

On the track there was one World Under-20 record, in the girls’ Under-20 4x100m relay where the Jamaican team ran 42.58 seconds to break the record they set eight months earlier at the World Under-20 Championships.

There were also six other championships records, four by Jamaicans and two by athletes from The Bahamas, and its understandable why Coe and Sands, as well as the local planners, would be head over heels with the outcome, especially after two years without the region’s premier junior track and field show.

We also witnessed the emergence of a star, 16-year-old Adaejah Hodge of the British Virgin Islands, who won the girls’ Under-17 100m/200m and the long jump with impressive marks and was the Austin Sealy Award winner.

From an organisational standpoint, there were a few hiccups, but as Fennell also pointed out, this was the norm at every event, from the Olympics down; no major event is ever without its hitches.

Some members of the media have still not received their accreditations for the meet and the space allocated to the media at the National Stadium is woefully inadequate.

However, while the Jamaicans were steamrolling their way to a record medal haul, there were a few concerns that might have got lost in all the celebrations.

Jamaica is way behind the rest of the region in at least two events — the javelin and the pole vault. Yes, we are the sprint capital of the Caribbean, but if we want to be seen as the real track and field kings and queens, we must be proficient in other events.

This is where the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) must come in, especially in the pole vault where there are very few schools in the island that can even afford the equipment and as such, just a handful of schools even compete in the event at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Championships.

Jamaica has not competed in the decathlon at a major global meet in more than a decade, and our weakness in both the javelin and pole vault, could be one of the reasons for this.

Maybe a pole vault setup can be donated by the Government at various centres across the island, at the Montego Bay Sports Complex, for example, at one in the east and another in central Jamaica.

Of course strict management would have to be in place for its use by the various schools who would be required to provide their own poles would be a start.

At the risk of incurring the wrath of track and field fans, our medal haul could have been helped greatly by the fact that our main rivals from the Caribbean — The Bahamas and Trinidad — were not as strong as they used to be.

The fact that we were able to host an ISSA/GraceKennedy Champs the last two years while a lot of the Caribbean were still under lock down might also have helped us to get that head start, thanks in a great part to the great work of the JAAA and the Government.

The Bahamas, with the exception of their junkonoo band, was a disappointment on the track, yes they won two of the javelin gold medals with championship records and the Under-20 boys’ pole vault, but we have come to expect a lot more from them.

Where were the Trinidad and Tobago quarter-milers that we have come to expect to challenge Jamaica in the 4x400m races? This year they were competitive for the first two legs in the boys’ Under-20 race, and that was it.

Jamaica also swept all eight relays, which might be a first or at least not done forn some time, but it is not usual for this to happen. Interestingly, Jamaica won most of them by wide margins.

There were two competitors in the Under-17 boys’ throws, and so Jamaica’s Despiro Wray will have to wait until next year to ‘officially’ win a Carifta gold medal as the two medals he won this year will be classified as ‘exhibition’.

Track and field rules dictate that in international competitions, a certain number of competitors from a certain number of countries must participate to make the event ‘official’ and both the discus and shot put events fell short.

Maybe the COVID-19 interruption might have caused this as well and we can only hope that by the time the 2023 staging is held in The Bahamas that we will see more athletes taking part in more events.