ANGELS, St Catherine — Garth Gayle, the president of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), is urging national coaches to start taking the mixed relays
“seriously”.

Jamaica has won only one senior international medal in the relay that features both men and women — at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar. But the team failed to make it past the first round last year in Budapest, Hungary.

While Jamaica is in the top 16 in the world in the event during the qualifying period for this summer’s Olympic Games, Gayle said it appears enough is not being done to consistently win medals in the event.

“I want to make a very careful point about the mixed relays,” Gayle told the
Jamaica Observer at Saturday’s Milo Western Relays at the GC Foster College of Physical Education and Sports.

“My instructions to the coaching staff and to the selection committee, is that we’re going to stop treating the mixed relays as a joke, we are going to be very serious about it. Because if we are not serious about it we’ll have to make a decision, it’s not about getting athletes on teams,” he said.

“We want our athletes to go there and to compete and compete fiercely for podium positions because the podium position does affect them personally and even financially.

“So, I do believe it’s time that we really and truly take this event seriously because other countries are taking it seriously and we are lagging and they are not better than us so why are we who have a relay culture and have won many relays at every level,” the JAAA boss said.

“I will be very clear in my instructions,” Gayle emphasised.

Jamaica is expected to compete in the mixed 4x400m relay at the World Relays set for The Bahamas in May.