An­drew Gioan­net­ti

T&T's 22-ath­lete con­tin­gent is ex­pect­ed to touch down in Eu­gene, Ore­gon, at around mid­day to­day, ahead of the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Fed­er­a­tions (IAAF) World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships, which will take place in the same city from Tues­day to Sun­day. The team was sched­uled to de­part T&T just af­ter 12.20 am, two days be­fore the start of com­pe­ti­tion.Ac­cord­ing to man­age­ment, there has been no cause for con­cern over the fit­ness of any of the ath­letes thus far and sev­er­al are in prime form to cap­ture pre­cious met­al, in­clud­ing the world's top-ranked 400m sprint­er in his class, Machel Ce­de­nio.

Dex­ter Voisin, the team's head coach tipped Ce­de­nio, a mul­ti­ple CAC and Carif­ta gold medal­list, and this coun­try's 4x100m girls' and boys' teams for suc­cess. Ce­de­nio is al­so in­clud­ed in the 4x400m boys' re­lay team."The present ath­letes start­ed cam­paign­ing since the Carif­ta Games be­fore they went on­to the CAC Games, where they had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sess them­selves. In a sense it gave them the chance to gauge their per­for­mances," said Voisin."Their cur­rent rank­ings could speak for their ex­pec­ta­tions. The 4x100 re­lay teams, the boys and girls are ex­pect­ed to do well based on their rank­ings, and some of the in­di­vid­u­als, like Shakeil Wait­he (javelin) but noth­ing is cast in stone. Re­mem­ber, some of the Eu­ro­pean teams do not get to train to­geth­er like we do, so that would af­fect the stand­ings."

Voisin said while many will fo­cus their at­ten­tion on the Com­mon­wealth Games, lo­cal ath­let­ics fans should tune in to wit­ness the po­ten­tial suc­cess­es of a high­ly tal­ent­ed crop of play­ers. The Com­mon­wealth Games will start on Wednes­day and close on Au­gust 3, in Glas­gow, Scot­land.The girls 4x100m re­lay team com­pris­es Za­kiya De­noon, Aaliyah Teles­ford, Kayelle Clarke, Mauri­cia Pri­eto and Tr­ishelle Lea­cock, while the boys equiv­a­lent in­cludes Jonathan Far­in­ha, John Mark Con­stan­tine, Hol­land Cabare, Mic­ah Bal­lan­tyne, Akan­ni His­lop, Aaron Lewis. Voisin al­so sug­gest­ed that Far­in­ha (boys 100m and 200m) may be in line for a medal. He is ranked 9th and 13th in the two dis­tances, re­spec­tive­ly.

T&T TEAM

Girls

100m–Za­kiya De­noon, Aaliyah Teles­ford

200m–Kayelle Clarke

100m hur­dles–Ak­i­la Mc­Shine

Shot put–Por­tious War­ren

Re­lay Pool

4x100m–Za­kiya De­noon, Aaliyah Teles­ford, Kayelle Clarke, Mauri­cia Pri­eto, Tr­ishelle Lea­cock

Boys

100m–John Mark Con­stan­tine, Jonathan Far­in­ha

200m–Jonathan Far­in­ha

400m–Asa Gue­vara, Machel Ce­de­nio

800m–Nicholas Lan­deau

110m hur­dles–Aaron Lewis, Rue­bin Wal­ters

Javelin–Shack­eil Wait­he

Re­lay Pools

4x100m–Jonathan Far­in­ha, John Mark Con­stan­tine, Hol­land Cabare, Mic­ah Bal­lan­tyne, Akan­ni His­lop, Aaron Lewis.

4x400m–Machel Ce­de­nio, Asa Gue­vara, Odel James, Bre­on Mullings, Nathan Far­in­ha, Rue­bin Wal­ters

Of­fi­cials

Jim Clarke (man­ag­er), Dex­ter Voisin (head coach), Charles Joseph (sprints coach), Ker­ron Brown (throws coach), Althea Bus­by (sprints, hur­dles coach), Shurlan Bonas (mas­sage ther­a­pist).