For many reasons, the Leonora Track and Field Facility will be ignited this weekend (March 14 and 15), as the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) hosts the Early Season Classic over the weekend.
A glimpse of what to expect over the weekend at Leonora
For starters, this weekend’s event is being used as the final qualification opportunity for those youths who are hoping to make it to this year’s CARIFTA Games in Bermuda.
However, the AAG sought to add a bit more excitement to the two-day meet by allowing senior athletes to compete. While the more experienced athletes will be focused on hitting the mark, with their eyes on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics; International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Grand Prix and Continental circuit, they will also face the adversity of having to compete against the younger crowd.
AAG President Aubrey Hutson
The battle of youth versus experience will get better, as the AAG made the decision to invite the best athletes from each age group, instead of having a free-for-all meet. President Aubrey Hutson shared why.
“What we did was we basically invited the cream of the crop of Guyanese track and field to the competition this weekend. The athletes who we think did not meet the level to be there we did not invite them,” Hutson revealed.
Aside from the biggest goal of making the CARIFTA Games, which are scheduled for the Easter weekend (April 10-13), the younger athletes will be looking to impress in order to book spots in the World Juniors, South American Youth and Juniors and Grenada’s Whitsuntide Games.
Sharing the rationale behind mixing the groups, the AAG President explained that it was a way to better prepare the youngsters for international competition.
“The reason why we do this is because when our youth and junior athletes go into CARIFTA Games, running with our seniors is the kind of competition that they have to be prepared for when they go out there, because people like Jamaica and Bahamas are on a different level, so if we can expose them to that level of competition, it is the same kind that they’ll be going into when they get to CRAIFTA,” he noted.
The AAG boss went on to reveal his expectations for the highly-anticipated Early Season Classic.
“The level of competition is going to be very, very high, because there are a lot of the junior athletes who feel that they can beat the seniors, and the seniors will really and truly want to make a statement that they’re not ready to give up their position as being the top athletes in the country,” he stated.
The AAG President went on to state, “All in all, I think everyone competing this weekend will put it out there to show us the Association as to their level of fitness and level of competitiveness, so we can look at them for selection for international competition.”
On a different note, Hutson declared that the Association is looking to have an early start.
“We actually will start at 11 o’clock, but we encourage teams to be there by 10 o’ clock, because after 10:30 we will not be issuing numbers and that kind of story,” he warned.
Thus far, 12 Guyana-based athletes have hit the qualifying mark for this year’s CARIFTA Games in Bermuda while one foreign-based athlete has qualified.
The junior athletes who have already made the qualification times locally for the CARIFTA Games are Adriel Austin, Annalisa Barclay, Seon Booker, Princess Browne, Anisha Gibbons, Trevon Hamer, Randy Hamilton, Attoya Harvey, Lionel Marks, Okenoko Pascal, Keliza Smith, and Wesley Tyndall. Meanwhile, Kenisha Phillips is the foreign-based student athlete.
Guyana is looking to take a team of 15 or more athletes to the Bermuda games. (Jemima Holmes)
