Kingston College (KC) and Edwin Allen will start favourites, in their respective genders, win the 2017 ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships.
The five-day meet, dubbed Champs, runs off at the National Stadium in Kingston on Tuesday afternoon, 1pm to be exact and ends on Saturday, April 1.
KC, having played second fiddle to Calabar over the last five years, are highly fancied to break the jinx this time around. They last won the title in 2009.
Carey McLeod, the team’s captain, said “KC is ready for Champs 2017”
“At this point in time if you are not ready you are in big trouble. We have been doing well all season, so its down to crunch time now and we are ready and raring to go.”
Calabar, on the other side, according to their team captain, “We are ready to fix it and six it.”
“The team is right where I think we would want it to be,” said Calabar’s head coach Michael Clarke.
“The team is bubbling, I think, they (athletes) are in good shape, we are ready to roll. We are anticipating a good rivalry from our competitors,” he said.
KC dominated the local track and field circuit and is expected to beat Calabar by over 30 points.
Trackalerts.com’s senior writer Noel Francis has KC to tally 364 to Calabar’s 334. The third place contest will be between Jamaica College (JC) and St. Jago as both are expected to score in the region of 140 to 170 points.
Francis said he didn’t do any points prediction for the girls, as Edwin Allen will win easily.
Edwin Allen, based on the early preseason competitions, should be the only team to score over 300 points while Hydel, Holmwood and St. Jago should finish in that order.
