Dear Editor,

Young People Advocating Change (YPAC), a dedicated youth-based advocacy group, is expressing profound disappointment with the 2025 staging of the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Championships (Champs).

Without question, this iteration of Champs ranks as the most disastrous in its illustrious history — not due to the athletes, who displayed remarkable resilience and talent, but because of glaring organisational failures by ISSA and the officials responsible for managing the event.

From the outset, Champs 2025 felt less like an ISSA-run spectacle and more like an event sublet to an entity unfamiliar with its legacy. It was a poorly executed fiasco, plagued with delays, bewildering decisions, and a lack of consideration for the young athletes who trained tirelessly for their moment in the spotlight.

A distressing feature of this year’s event was the unusually long waiting times that athletes experienced on the track. Such delays are not just an inconvenience, they disrupt an athlete’s mental focus and physical readiness, leading to unfair disadvantages in competition.

Additionally, Champs 2025 will be remembered for the inexplicable surge in retroactive disqualifications. Athletes who were initially disqualified were mysteriously reinstated for later rounds, while others faced removal under suspiciously inconsistent circumstances. These inconsistencies undermined the credibility of the competition and left both participants and spectators confused and frustrated.

Perhaps the most egregious issue of Champs 2025 was the draconian enforcement of the false start rule. YPAC believes that the strict zero-tolerance approach to false starts is the worst rule in all of sports and grossly unfair to young athletes, many of whom are competing on a national stage for the first time.

Instead of applying discretion, the starting officials seemed more interested in flexing their egos, devastating the dreams of young competitors with ruthless disqualifications for the slightest of movements. This isn’t the World Championships or the Olympics — this is Champs, a sports meet for children, some as young as 10 years old. The damage inflicted on these young athletes’ emotional well-being is immeasurable, and we demand ISSA take this into consideration.

A particularly disgraceful moment was the treatment of the young female athlete from Lacovia High School — arguably the biggest star of this year’s meet — who was disqualified for a marginal false start. Instead of allowing her to compete, she was later permitted to run for a timed qualifier. How does that make any sense? It was an avoidable injustice that robbed fans and supporters of one of the few marquee talents in Champs 2025.

We ask: Who is responsible for monitoring these matters? The integrity of Champs is at stake, and this level of negligence raises serious concerns about the fairness of the competition.

The viewing experience of Champs 2025 was nothing short of abysmal. In just the first two days, there were close to 50 false starts — an unheard of statistic that further proves how flawed the execution of this event was. Overseas viewers attempting to watch on Friday night were met with an exasperating sequence of back-to-back delays, amounting to nearly an hour of dead air, with no action on the track.

We call on ISSA to immediately reassess its approach to organising Champs. The young athletes who pour their hearts and souls into this event deserve better. Champs is not just another athletics competition — it is a cultural phenomenon, a platform for young talents to shine.

ISSA must recognise that its primary duty is to nurture and protect the future of Jamaican track and field, not stifle it with inconsistent rulings, unfair policies, and haphazard organisation.

YPAC stands firm in demanding that ISSA revisits the drawing board, lest Champs continue down this regrettable path of decline.

Young People Advocating Change

youthchangeja@gmail.com