Clay­ton Clarke

In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Fed­er­a­tion (IAAF) tech­ni­cal man­ag­er Im­re Math­arazi has de­nied the claims made by NAAA pres­i­dent Ephraime Ser­rette that there are no cer­ti­fied tracks in the coun­try. He was re­spond­ing to a re­port on the We site trackalerts.com on De­cem­ber 8 where Ser­rette said none of the five tracks across T&T were cer­ti­fied.

How­ev­er, Math­arazi said ac­cord­ing to IAAF records, there are two cer­ti­fied track venues in T&T: the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go and the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Port-of-Spain. Ser­rette said the mark­ings done on the mon­do at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um for the Fi­fa Women's Un­der-17 World Cup would "have de­cer­ti­fied it from my knowl­edge" and "sim­i­lar lines were put at all the tracks at the oth­er sta­dia and they would be de­cer­ti­fied."

Ser­rette, who was re-elect­ed as NAAA pres­i­dent, made the as­ser­tions on a sports talk show on a ra­dio sta­tion on No­vem­ber 25. Math­arazi said the NAAA should wait on the re­port on the mark­ings and should re­move the mark­ings." IAAF Deputy Di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions An­na Leg­nani sug­gest­ed that the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion (NAAA) should con­tact Math­arazi to have the is­sue clar­i­fied.

A lo­cal tech­ni­cal of­fi­cial who spoke on the con­did­tion of onymi­ty said he was wary of the claims made by the Pres­i­dent be­cause the IAAF did not make any of­fi­cial state­ment on the stan­dard of the he track and field fa­cil­i­ties in T&T.