Despite this being the latest start in a calender year to any World Athletics Under20 Championships (formerly World Juniors), the Jamaica team Assistant manager Michael McIntosh thinks athletes are on schedule in terms of the readiness and will do well.

The championships, which has been shrunk to five days, starts on Tuesday at the Estadio Atletico de la Videna in Lima, Peru. The only two others that begun after the first week of August were the 2021 edition in Nairobi, Kenya, which got going on August 17, and the 1996 edition in Sydney, Australia, which started on August 19.

“Well, everybody is exposed to the same lateness of the championships and our coaches would have known this from three years ago, that this is going to be the time of the championships,” McIntosh, the Green Island High athletics head coach and vice-principal, told the Jamaica Observer as he accompanied four athletes who departed out of Montego Bay on Sunday.

“So they would have prepared the athletes accordingly and based on what I have seen for the past two weeks, they are right on schedule to do well,” he reasoned.

“The athletes are going to give a good account of themselves. Based on the last training we had, which was Friday of last week, we would have seen them going through their paces and the relay teams got some good practice in, and they look very, very good and ready to go.”

From an organisational point, he said things were going smoothly.

“The team leaders, including Keith Wellington, would have left on Saturday to make sure things were in place when we get there. The first group [of athletes] left early [on Sunday], they should be in Miami and going to Lima later and the third group would be leaving out later and will be flying via Santo Domingo into Lima,” McIntosh explained.

The Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) had named a 43-member team two weeks ago. The Jamaicans will hope to match or surpass the 16 medals (six gold, seven silver and three bronze) won in Cali, Colombia, two years ago. That haul was the most by any country, but Jamaica finished second on the medal table to the United States who won seven gold medals in their tally of 15 overall.

The Jamaica team will be without three winners from the national junior championships in June. Horizontal jumper Jaydon Hibbert, who was injured while placing fourth in the triple jump at the Olympics, misses out.

US-born long sprinter Skyler Franklin, who had not received her Jamaican passport in time for registration, and long jumper Aaliyah Francis, who opted to concentrate on her preparation for next season at the University of Texas, will also be absent.

Another noticeable absentee is Rhianna Lewis, who was second in the women’s 400m hurdles at the junior championships. Lewis is said to have been injured.

Jamaican athlete Romario Hines (right) hugs his mother Keretha Kelly before members of the team left the island for the World Athletics Under20 Championships in Peru via Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay on Sunday.