County of Cornwall Athletics Association (COCAA) Western Championships organisers are expecting more schools than originally expected for the meet to be staged at GC Foster College on February 21.

The event, to be held at the venue in St Catherine for the second year, has been reduced to one day instead of the customary two days.

Stephen Smith, president of COCAA, says the signs are positive based on dialogue with schools.

Track and field preparations for almost all schools in western Jamaica were affected by Hurricane Melissa which hit the island on October 28 last year. Due to the impact of the storm, schools will either field much smaller teams or not compete at all.

Initially, it was expected that about 15 schools would feature this year, a dramatic drop from the over 30 which participated in 2025. Smith said things were looking up ahead of the deadline for entries on February 17.

“So far we have a handful of early entries,” Smith told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday. “However, we have seen a number of other schools taking part in development meets and some have reached out to us indicating they plan to take part.”

He said that despite the additional interest, the overall numbers of athletes taking part is expected to be lower that normal.

“We don’t think we will see the mass numbers from the previous years. Some schools will have just a handful of athletes, mostly the ones in the older age groups,” he said.

There were concerns over which venue would have hosted the meet, which previously had been held over two days on grass tracks around the region. But delay with refurbishing the G C Foster track created an opportunity for COCAA organisers.

“That [the refurbishing delay] turned out to be a positive for us as a number of coaches pushed for us to compete on the all-weather surface, as with less meets this year, they wanted to get the best surfaces and give the track athletes better chances of meeting the ISSA [Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association] Champs qualifying standards,” Smith said.

Smith said the decision to compact the event into one day was made due to the expected smaller number of entries. He said organisers are confident that with proper meet management they will be able to complete the championships in one day.

“We have had to make some adjustments this year, which I am sure most coaches will understand — it is not a normal situation. With the exception of the 100m in all classes for both genders, which will be held over two rounds, all the other events will be timed finals. We are working to fine-tune the logistics to make sure that everything will be completed on the day,” he explained.

The format that was used over the last few years involved staging a number of field events, the first round of the sprints, and a handful of middle distance events on the first day, with the other events held on the final day.

SMITH… we have seen a number of other schools taking part in development meets and some have reached out to us indicating they plan to take part