Despite the Gibson McCook Relays being reduced to finals only, Reverend Ryan Peralto, the entries and registration chairman, says he is expecting a bumper crowd nevertheless for the five-hour spectacle set for the National Stadium on Saturday, February 28, 2026.

The premier relay carnival on this side of the hemisphere, which was started in 1973, had its launch on Thursday at Jamaica Pegasus hotel with a sponsors’ luncheon and drawing of events.

This will be the second time in its history not having the preliminary rounds and heading straight into the finals with invitational teams based on 2025 performances. The first time this happened was in 2022, coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This reduced format will see the event start at 4:00 pm instead of the early morning schedule with the heats as teams battle to make the finals for the grand showdown in the evenings.

Peralto hopes this will not impact the event financially, as he implored the spectators to come out in numbers as usual.

“The reduced format — the big thing for us is the amount of spectators in the seats. That’s what makes a huge difference in the financial picture for the Gibson McCook Relays,” said Peralto.

“So it all comes down to that — the attendance. We have the sponsor — that’s great — that allows us to run the meet, but the spectators are what bring us the real success factor on the financial side. So we’re hoping for that,” he pointed out.

There will be 42 events at the 49th staging of the Gibson McCook Relays, including 17 championship events, with a special $75,000 prize for any records broken.

Seventy-seven schools will compete and approximately 1,500 athletes will have an invitational 60m dash for men and women.

Teams from Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, and the United States of America will match skills with their Jamaican counterparts.

“What I like is that this year, although there are no big championships, you see that athletes are already coming out and competing, and so we’re expecting quite an exciting event.

A lot of schools will be left out this year as the organisers will be using the top performers from last year’s edition to decide the finalists, and this will irk some of the lesser schools that normally get a chance to rub shoulders with the big and established teams.

PERALTO… the spectators are what bring us the real success factor on the financial side (Photo: Observer file)

“And that’s always the challenge. Because when you have the heat, you get a chance,” Peralto noted.

“But we had to decide that for this race, this year, because we wanted to try this finals format again,” he explained.

“The last time we tried it was back the year after COVID and it didn’t work too well at the time, mainly because we didn’t get as many spectators because of COVID protocols,” he added.

“So this is the first time we can try it without the worry of COVID protocols to see if we can bring in the fans with that kind of format. So we chose the teams and we’re looking at them right now,” said Peralto.

“There are some events that we’re going to have to look at. We may have to run two sections because we don’t want to lock out a team that need that competition,” he pointed out.

“But you’ve got to be there, bottom line,” said Peralto.