Fifteen gold medals will be up for grabs on today’s opening day of the 50th staging of the Carifta Games being held at the Thomas R Robinson stadium in Nassau, Bahamas, today.

Jamaica are the defending champions and will be represented by a powerful 80-member strong team that will include seven individual medallists from last year’s World Under-20 Championships.

The Jamaicans will be seeking a 37th-straight team title after winning a record 92 medals last year when it was held in Kingston.

The 100m finals in both Under-17 and Under-20 for boys and girls are expected to highlight today’s opening day and the Jamaican sprint squad led by Bouwahjgie Nkrumie and Alana Reid who set national junior records at last week’s ISSA Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships will start favourities in the senior sections.

In addition to the 100m finals, there will also be finals in the 400m and 1,500m today, Girl’s Under 17 High jump, Boys’ Under-20 javelin and Girls’ Under-17 shot put, Boys’ Under-20 discus throw, Girls’ Under-20 triple jump, Boys’ Under-20 high jump and Girls’ Under 20 discus throw.

Additionally, the multi-events, the heptathlon for the girls and octathlon for the boys will also start today with Shericka Christie, who won the heptathlon at Champs and Courtney Williams, who was fourth in the decathlon, down to represent Jamaica in the events.

The Jamaican coaches were forced to make changes to the team due to injuries to Serena Cole, the 2022 World Under-20 100m silver medallist and Carifta Trials winner; Carleta Bernard, who was second in the Under-20 200m at the Carifta Trials; and Habiba Harris, who had won the Under-20 girls’ 100m hurdles at the trials, beating World Under-20 silver medallist Alexis James, the defending Carifta champion.

All three were injured at last week’s ISSA Championships and James, the silver medallist in the Girls’ Class 1 100m final at Champs and who was third at the Carifta Trials, will join Reid in the Unde-20 100m today.

Nkrumie and Carifta Games defending champion deAndre Daley will contest the Under-20 Boys’ 100m which will have its first round in the mornng session.

Natrece East and Tiana Marshall will contest the Girls’ Under-17 100m, while Tramaine Todd and Khamani Gordon will fly the Jamaican flag in the Boys’ Under-17 section.

Four Jamaicans will defend titles today, Delano Kennedy in the Under-20 Boys’ 400m, Kobe Lawrence in the Under 20 Boys’ discus throw, one of two gold medals he won last year, whilst Cedricka Williams who had a monster 57.84m throw at the ISSA Champs will defend her Under-20 discus throw title and World Under-20 champion Brandon Pottinger will hope for redemption when he lines up in the high jump after finishing second last year in Kingston.