KINGSTON, Ja­maica – Ja­maican track and field fans can breath a sigh of re­lief as it was an­nounced on Wednes­day that the suc­cess­ful resur­fac­ing of the run­ning track at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um has been com­plet­ed ahead of the busy track and field sched­ule.

Dur­ing a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty on Wednes­day, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Gen­der, En­ter­tain­ment and Sport, Olivia Grange, praised the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al work­ers, high­light­ing their ded­i­ca­tion to de­liv­er­ing a world-class run­ning sur­face.

The resur­fac­ing project was spear­head­ed by Reko­r­tan, a lead­ing track sup­pli­er, in part­ner­ship with In­de­pen­dence Park Lim­it­ed (IPL).

Reko­r­tan Vice Pres­i­dent Tim Jor­dan ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the qual­i­ty of the new track. “The resur­fac­ing work has been com­plet­ed to an ex­cep­tion­al stan­dard. The qual­i­ty of the track is fan­tas­tic and sec­ond to none, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the work done on top of the ex­ist­ing sur­face.”

Doug Stone, an­oth­er Reko­r­tan Vice Pres­i­dent who over­sees track in­stal­la­tions across North Amer­i­ca, em­pha­sized the im­prove­ments made to the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um.

“Our pri­ma­ry fo­cus was en­hanc­ing per­for­mance and ad­dress­ing safe­ty con­cerns. We’ve re­solved un­der­ly­ing is­sues with the track sur­face, en­sur­ing it meets the high­est stan­dards. Ath­letes can ex­pect per­for­mance lev­els equal to or bet­ter than be­fore. This is now a world-class run­ning sur­face.”

When ques­tioned about whether the track’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion had been down­grad­ed, Stone firm­ly de­nied the claim. “Not at all. The track re­tains its world-class cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. All lane and event mark­ings meet Class One stan­dards, en­sur­ing it re­mains a top-tier fa­cil­i­ty for in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions.”

Don Locker­bie, Venue Di­rec­tor for Grand Slam Track, al­so ad­dressed con­cerns re­gard­ing the track’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. “The track is cur­rent­ly in world-class con­di­tion and will per­form beau­ti­ful­ly. It meets the high­est in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, and any records set here will stand. The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion re­mains Class One, valid for the next five years.”

Locker­bie fur­ther praised the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort be­hind the project. “Our part­ner­ship with the Min­is­ter, the gov­ern­ment, IPL, and Ma­jor Brown has been out­stand­ing. To­geth­er, we’ve de­liv­ered a track that is not on­ly safe and fast but al­so vi­su­al­ly stun­ning, with colours re­flect­ing the Ja­maican flag.”

The Ja­maica High School cham­pi­onships will be the first event on the new track lat­er this month fol­lowed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Grand Slam track meet in April.

CMC