Despite receiving two years’ worth of criticism regarding the schedule change, particularly surrounding the 100m finals at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships, ISSA President Keith Wellington says the organisation made the right decision after having a significant turnout of spectators at the National Stadium on day two of the championships.

Traditionally, the 100m final for all classes would complete the action on Friday.

However, in 2019, ISSA made adjustments to the schedule and moved the finals of the shortest sprint to Wednesday.

Fans were critical of the move, due to the popularity of the event which drew a large crowd on the penultimate day.

However, after seeing the grandstand almost filled to capacity and having sections of the bleachers populated, Wellington says he was overjoyed.

“I don’t like to use the word vindicated because when you use it, it suggests you’re boastful, but yes, we feel that we made the right decision and we are happy with the affirmation in terms of the number of persons that turned out,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

While the seal of approval from supporters was important, Wellington says assisting the athletes and coaches was the most important thing for ISSA.

“Those persons who are really close to track and field — being the athletes, coaches and the aficionados — they understand what we’re trying to do in terms of protecting the athletes and getting maximum effort from an athlete, especially the sprinters,” he said.

“The 100m-200m double is one of the most popular doubles in track and field, but it requires an athlete to run at least six rounds at Champs, and what we did with the change facilitated a better, structured way. Add to the fact that every 100m runner will return to run the 4x100m; it is possible they’ll also want to run the 4x400m, so you talking about potentially 100 or 200 sprinter running as many as 10 races. What we had before was those 10 races spread over two or three days, so it was something that was done in the interest of the athletes and the athletes, coaches and parents are appreciative of it.”

However, Wellington expecting a better turnout in 2025 after admitting some faults in their preparations.

“There’s a lot more that we can do to make Wednesday a bigger day,” he said. “It’s an established fact that the 100m is Jamaica’s ‘meat and drink’ in terms of track and field. I’m not sure we did enough to advertise as much as we could.

“We’re already thinking of a couple other adjustments, in terms of what else we’re able to do on a Wednesday, to make it an even more entertaining afternoon.”

Wellington also hopes that the change will lead to better showings on the track from the athletes.

“We expect to see the 200m performances improve significantly because our sprinters can do their pet event if it’s the 100m [or 400m] and still be able to focus and do exceptionally in front of a big crowd on Saturday,” he added.