Spotlight on Youngster Goldsmith meet this weekend

THE 2020 local track and field season heats up on Saturday with the 23rd staging of the very popular Grace/Puma Youngster Goldsmith Classics at the National Stadium starting at 8 a.m. This meet has, over the years, attracted all the top boys and girls high school teams and usually is a good indicator of what will happen at the ISSA Boys and Girls’ Championships as a wide array of events are on the programme. The meet, which is hosted by Kingston College, is named in honour of the school’s former weights trainer and physical education teacher of the institution, William ‘Youngster’ Goldsmith. Meet coordinator Raffic Shaw is bracing for what should be the biggest development meet so far this season. “The response from the schools has been tremendous as all the top teams have entered and another day of high-class and quality performances are expected once again as it is coming to crunch time for the Boys and Girls’ Championships. All arrangements are in place for a smooth running,,” said Shaw. He added: This is the only development meet leading to Champs where there are heats and finals of the sprint hurdles in all classes for males and females. In addition, for the first time, there will be heats and finals for high school teams in the 400m hurdles. “

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Another added feature of this year’s staging will be the 100 metres in all classes. This is the final event of the day and teams have ben asked to pay an extra cost of $250 per athlete in this event. “The 100 metres was not on the original programme but the coaches requested it. This will force us to have events until well into the night and we have to pay for using the lights. The cost of this comes from the fees charged for this event,” said Shaw.

The 400m hurdles open for girls will be the first event on the day and other events on the track are 400m, 1500m, 2000m steeplechase and all sprint hurdles for males and females. There will also be 200m and 800m Invitational races. In the field, there will be long jump, high jump, javelin, pole vault, shot put and discus.