The National Stadium will be buzzing with excitement this afternoon with the staging of the Gibson McCook Relays when thousands of track and field fans are expected to be on hand to witness the highly anticipated event.

The Gibson McCook Relays is celebrating 50 years and will return with 43 events in a 12-hour extravaganza.

The championship, which is back to its original schedule, seeing the meet starting at 9:00 am for the morning session, will have 20 heats and five finals up to 2:30, while in the afternoon session, 40 finals are set to start from 4:00 pm.

Prize money totalling US$50,000 (about J$7.7 million) will be shared among the finalists in both the men’s and women’s 60 metres races. The winners are set to pocket US$10,000 each (J$1.5 million). All eight finalists in both 60m events will collect cash prizes.

The preliminary round of the women’s 60m event is set to run off at 4:20 pm.

The event is expected to include Briana Williams and Kemba Walker, who were both members of Jamaica’s silver medal-winning team at last year’s World Championships in Eugene, Oregon. Former Edwin Allen siblings Tina and Tia Clayton, along with Joneille Smith, Jura Levy, Amoi Brown, Anthonique Strachan and Kerrica Hill are also expected to face the starter in the event.

In the men’s section, which is scheduled to begin at 4:25 pm, former world 100m champion Yohan Blake will line up against his Titian clubmate Ackeem Blake.

The field will also include British runner Zharnell Hughes, Nigel Ellis, Emmanuel Archibald, Jevaun Newby, Michael Campbell and Brendon Rodney.

The boys’ Class One 4x100m relay is expected to be very competitive with the likes of Kingston College (KC), Jamaica College (JC), St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) and Edwin Allen set to do battle.

KC have the leading time going into today’s event after clocking a season best of 40.80 seconds two weeks ago in Trinidad and Tobago.

The KC team will be led by World Under-20 men’s 100 metres champion and national junior record holder Bouwahjgie Nkrumie.

The team will also include Yourie Lawrence-Clarke, Nicholas Francis and Marvin Patterson.

Defending champion JC and KC go head to head for the 4x800m relay title. They are expected to receive strong competition from the likes of St Jago, Wolmer’s Boys and Excelsior.

Edwin Allen will head into the girls’ Class One 4x400m with the fastest time of 3:37.52 minutes, which they achieved at the Western Relays ahead of runners-up Holmwood Technical at 3:38.06.

Hydel, who are the defending champions of the event, along with Excelsior, and Wolmer’s Girls should provide strong competition.