Despite several top athletes withdrawing from this weekend’s Racers Grand Prix, meet chairman and club president Glen Mills says he’s far from concerned and expects a high-quality event.

The seventh staging of the Racers Grand Prix is scheduled to take place on Saturday at the National Stadium.

But reigning Olympic Games 100m hurdles champion Masai Russell is no longer set to feature. The American record holder won’t make the trip to Jamaica after reportedly picking up an injury in training.

Fellow Americans Tia Jones, Champion Allison, Aleia Hobbs and Josephus Lyles, as well as Nigerian 100m hurdles world record holder Tobi Amusan are also set to miss the event.

Reigning 400m champion Antonio Watson, 2021 Olympic bronze medallist Megan Tapper and rising sprint star Gary Card are among the Jamaicans who have been ruled out.

Mills, though, told the Jamaica Observer that he isn’t overly disappointed with the athletes’ absences.

“The withdrawals are inevitable in meets of this nature. At all levels, we try to get people committed from early to generate publicity but between our press conference in April and now, significant times have happened, athletes are running weekly so you will have athletes getting injured, and so on,” he said.

“But we have a good field of athletes, so the emphasis should be on what is going to happen and who is available and not who isn’t available. You can’t avoid people withdrawing; sometimes, you have maybe one or two if you’re lucky, and sometimes you have quite a number but you can always get replacements and it’s about the excitement and quality of performances of those who actually compete.”

Reigning two-time 200m world champion Shericka Jackson, Olympic 100m silver medallist Kishane Thompson and Olympic 110m hurdles bronze medallist Rasheed Broadbell are among the main draws for this Saturday.

Also confirmed are Olympic and World Championships sprint finalist Oblique Seville, Olympic and World Championship long jump silver medallist Wayne Pinnock, the resurgent 400m runner Christopher Taylor and the Clayton twins, Tia and Tina.

Mills says he’s optimistic that the current line-up will produce performances of the highest level.

“We’ve always had a quite a number of outstanding performances at our meet. Last year, we had about two or three world leads and we had some exciting races and some high-quality stuff. I expect this year will be no less and we’re really excited about what lies ahead on Saturday.”

The successful veteran coach is also urging local fans to turn out in their numbers as it will help to elevate the performances.

“We plan to showcase a lot of Jamaican athletes. You could call it spotlight on Jamaica and to that, we have some of our very best competing on Saturday. We sincerely hope that the crowd will come out in a national effort to show their support, to cheer them on and to really build their intensity and reassure them in what is a very competitive year and a very long one because the season’s main event is in September, which is a bit unusual, so I’m sure whatever support the athletes get over the weekend will help to keep them going until September,” Mills said.

“We tried to reach as much as the populace because the athletes perform better [with] more persons inside the stadium so if we can get a good crowd, it will also enhance the performances because when athletes see that kind of support, it gets the adrenaline pumping and you get good performances,” he added.

Oblique Seville (Photo: Naphtali Junior)