The Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NAAATT) will host its first De­vel­op­ment Meet Se­ries One to get the 2024 lo­cal track and field sea­son go­ing at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain from 9 am.

The com­pe­ti­tion will see com­pe­ti­tion in the Un­der 15, 17, and 20 and Open di­vi­sion for ath­letes who will vie for ho­n­ours in 49 events.

Ath­letes from clubs across the coun­try are ex­pect­ed to make their way to HCS for a full day of ac­tion.

Coach of the Con­corde Ath­let­ic Club Ken Bar­ton says his charges will be fo­cussing on im­prov­ing their en­durance for their re­spec­tive events. “Our ath­letes will be com­pet­ing in over dis­tance events. Those who do the 100 and 200m races will com­pete in the 400m. Those who do the 400m will run in the 800m. This meet is of lit­tle sig­nif­i­cance for me but we want to get every­body go­ing. If you learn to lose then you can learn to win.”

Aeisha Colthrust, one of the coach­es at Queen’s Roy­al Club (QRC) Ath­let­ic Club wants her young­sters give their all. “We just ex­pect them to give their best. Some will be com­pet­ing for the first time, oth­ers would have a sea­son un­der their belt. I am just hop­ing their can put a seed­ed time and we will work from there af­ter that.”

Mean­while, head coach of Mem­phis Pi­o­neers, Dr Ian Hy­po­lite says with sev­er­al of his young com­peti­tors will be mak­ing their de­but for the club. “We have a lot of young ath­letes who have been with us train­ing. For them it will be a bap­tism of sorts and they will be ex­pos­ing them­selves for the first time. It is dif­fi­cult to say what to ex­pect. I think as the day un­folds we will see. I don’t to make any pre­dic­tions but they are cou­ple of them who ex­cite me but we have to see how they stand up to the rigours of com­pe­ti­tion .”

The high­light of this year’s ath­let­ic sea­son is the Paris Olympic Games in Au­gust. How­ev­er, even be­fore the sea­son got un­der­way, lo­cal ath­letes were greet­ed with the news that the tracks at the Hase­ly Craw­ford and Dwight Yorke sta­dia are no longer cer­ti­fied as at De­cem­ber 31, 2023.

Pres­i­dent of the NAAATT George Comis­siong told Guardian Me­dia Sports that with the loss of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Olympic qual­i­fy­ing per­for­mances achieved at the two sta­dia will not be recog­nised by the World Gov­ern­ing Body for track and field, World Ath­let­ics.

Comis­siong ex­plained that the NAAATT was able to get an ex­ten­sion of the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um un­til the track at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um is re­layed. Comis­siong added that the HCS will be closed from ear­ly March af­ter the Carif­ta Tri­als for re­lay­ing of HCS track. He fur­ther ex­plained that all track and field meets for the re­main­der of the 2024 sea­son will be re­lo­cat­ed to the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go

Sev­er­al club coach­es are dis­ap­point­ed with the pend­ing shut down of track and field ac­tiv­i­ties at the Port of Spain venue.

Bar­ton is not pleased. “I think it is a mat­ter of poor plan­ning which I am not too hap­py about. The NAAA should have ad­vised as to the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the track and when it should been closed so they can ad­vise the clubs and make pro­vi­sions to train else­where. When you get lime you I will play it as the ball rolls and will see what hap­pens.”

The Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um is usu­al­ly closed off from sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son to host fetes.

Dr Hy­po­lite be­lieves this reg­u­lar dis­rup­tion of the ath­let­ic sea­son is not a pro­gres­sive one.

“That has been and con­tin­ues to be a ma­jor prob­lem in terms of the de­vel­op­ment of our ath­let­ics. When­ev­er I sense we are about to get go­ing again we are al­ways struck with some sur­prise and this (the loss of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the HCS) is a new sur­prise. The im­pact has not been good when the sta­di­um has been closed down, cer­tain­ly for the clubs that func­tion in the North. We don’t have re­al al­ter­na­tives. It is dif­fi­cult to func­tion that way. So I wait to see what hap­pens with that as well.”

Colthrust added that “we have the Car­ni­val sea­son up­on us and at Car­ni­val time the avail­abil­i­ty of the sta­di­um dwin­dles. How­ev­er, in in­stances when we do not have ac­cess to the fa­cil­i­ty we do use the Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege grounds.”

Colthrust is lament­ing that some of her ath­letes are not able to train on the high jump mats ahead of to­day’s com­pe­ti­tion.

“It is a chal­lenge for us. We have putting our ap­pli­ca­tion (for use of the fa­cil­i­ty for train­ing) and hope for the best for the days that we do use the sta­di­um. Hav­ing ac­cess to the long jump and high jump fa­cil­i­ties as well. We haven’t been able to use the (high jump) com­pe­ti­tion mats. We have ap­plied for the mats to be put out so for some of the chil­dren it will be the first time us­ing (a high jump) mat on Sun­day (to­day).

Mean­while, Comis­siong has met with the Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SporTT) to dis­cus the re­lay­ing of the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um which he said is at the ten­der­ing stage. He added that there were al­so dis­cus­sions of the pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tances for ath­letes to com­pete at the Na­tion­al Ju­ve­nile, Ju­nior and Open Cham­pi­onships, all of which will not be shift­ed to the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in June and Ju­ly.