THERE have been mixed views regarding the number of international athletes competing at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs) but Sport Minister Olivia Grange and GraceKennedy Group Chief Executive Officer Don Wehby support the idea of more international athletes competing.

Prior to the championships, it was announced that a record number of overseas athletes would be competing at Champs this year. Students from the Caribbean, the USA, Europe and Africa, totalling over 100, represented various schools in both boys’ and girls’ events.

Prior to this year’s event a quota was implemented on the number of foreign nationals competing at Champs, which meant that each school would be permitted to use two student athletes per class. This followed a vote taken among principals after there was an influx from 2021 to 2023.

However, Minister Grange told the Jamaica Observer that overseas athletes competing will further enhance Jamaica’s sporting programme.

“As long as it does not affect our home-grown athletes, I don’t have a problem,” she said. “What it does is create that competition and encourage that competitive spirit, and when we see athletes from abroad coming to Jamaica it also helps to create Jamaica as that training ground internationally — and it’s because of how good we are. So, we should see it more as a compliment and not as preventing us from excelling, but rather to spur us on to want to be the best.

“We have a lot to offer that other countries don’t. When those international athletes come to Jamaica to compete in Champs, they come to be part of an institution — so it means their families, their parents, would have seen the benefit to them by coming to Jamaica, and learning, and being trained here and educated here, so to me, it’s a compliment. It’s a positive, it’s not a negative, and we are not afraid of the competition because we know we are the greatest.”

Wehby, whose company has sponsored Champs since 2007, says he wouldn’t mind seeing an increase for future editions.

“I have no problem with it at all once you’re here for a good education also,” Wehby told the
Observer. “I would think that Boys’ and Girls’ Champs could become a truly international meet. Keith Wellington [ISSA president] said there are over 100 international athletes competing. I have no issues. In fact, I’d encourage athletes to come here, but they have to come for a good education as well — not just to run alone.”

However ISSA Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships Committee Chairman Richard Thompson doesn’t expect any changes to the quota for overseas athletes as they seek to protect the interests of Jamaican students.

“We want them [international athletes] to be involved at Champs but we want to control the numbers a bit so our Jamaican athletes can have a fair chance of being developed,” he told the
Observer. “So, it’s trying to strike a balance and not to exclude.

“We saw the influx [of] international athletes because we suspect those involved in heavy recruiting saw that loophole where the restriction on quota were only coming from member schools, so we decided to extend the quota to international athletes.

“It’s not something that ISSA is trying to discourage but it’s something we want to monitor, and not lose the essence of what we are trying to achieve as an organisation.”

Over the years, schools and institutions across the region have competed against Jamaica’s junior athletes on the track. One such example is at the Gibson McCook Relays in February when athletes from Trinidad and Tobago, USA, and Canada took part in different events.

While admitting he would not be opposed to the idea of international schools competing at Champs, Thompson says it would not be practical.

“It’s unlikely that it will get to that stage unless we change the whole idea around the championships, because our high school championships is really about Jamaican schools,” he said.

“So if we bring other schools outside of Jamaica it means they will participate without the chance of winning the Jamaican championship — unless there’s an opportunity to have a different kind of championships organised by ISSA — but that’s something we need to explore,” he said. “But definitely, the nature of our championship is to restrict it to Jamaican schools but not necessarily Jamaican athletes.”