Harvey promises 'crisper' Milo Western Relays

Organisers of the 40th staging of the Milo Western Relays, set for February 10 at the Montego Bay Sports Complex, Catherine Hall, were forced into making changes to facilitate twilight curfew following the extension of the recently declared State of Emergency for the parish of St James.

Meet director Raymond 'Ray' Harvey said the meet will start at 10:00 a.m., two hours earlier to facilitate the teams coming from far. Despite losing an hour with the new schedule, he remains positive that the meet will be even bigger than previous outings.

"We received the permit to have the meet but one of the conditions is that it should end at 6:00 p.m. That forced us to start two hours earlier. What this boils down to is that we will have a nine hour event that we need to complete in eight, which means we are going to even be crisper than it usually is. The meet officials are well aware of the challenges, so we will try to be ahead of time in case of any contingency," said Harvey.

STRONGTEAM

"Last year we had tremendous competition. The excitement was just great and it seems as if this year we will even have more. The big clubs and successful schools are bringing strong teams, so I expect the level of competition to be higher than it has ever been," he added.

Consumer Marketing Manager of Nestle Jamaica Limited, Chris-Anthony Salter, who represented title Milo, has backed Harvey's claim of making this 40th anniversary of the meet the best yet.

Milo Relays will be rewarding cash prizes to 4x100m Class 1, 4x400m open and 4x800m open teams that finish from first to fourth place (first - $30,000, second - $15,000, third - $10,000 and fourth - $5,000).

"We have continued our monetary incentive to student-athletes who have made our national team, to the value of $200,000. The recipients for this year's grant are Rusea's, Petersfield, St Elizabeth Technical High School, Green Island, Spot Valley, Rhodes Hall High School and Cornwall College. Additionally, the best male and female coach will receive incentives of $50,000 each," said Salter.