KINGSTON, Jamaica – A number of events that were scheduled to start on today’s opening day of the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships have either been rescheduled or athletes have advanced due to lack of entries, OBSERVER ONLINE has learnt.

The schedule that was released had the championships starting with both preliminaries of the 2000m Steeplechase, but only one will be held today – the boys’ – and it will be run later in the day.

It is understood that the organisers wanted to give the runners in the 1500m, some of who will contest the steeplechase, more time to recover.

The girls’ event will be run as a final later in the week.

The preliminaries of the 1500m, which were set to be contested in the afternoon, will now be run much earlier and have been moved up to the top of the schedule starting at 9:00 am.

Only four of the six 1500m will be run, however, as the Girls Classes 1 and 2 will be run as finals while there will be competition in all three boys races today and the Girls Class 3.

Meanwhile, the athletes in the Girls Class 1 400m have been pushed forward to the semi-finals on Wednesday due to insufficient entries.

The Girls Class 1 high jump will be contested as a final on Friday afternoon.

– Paul A Reid