KINGSTON, Ja­maica – In a sig­nif­i­cant show of sup­port for Ja­maica’s ath­let­ic com­mu­ni­ty, World Ath­let­ics pres­i­dent Lord Se­bas­t­ian Coe an­nounced a US$100,000 (ap­prox­i­mate­ly J$16 mil­lion) do­na­tion to aid lo­cal track and field mem­bers im­pact­ed by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.

The an­nounce­ment was made dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Ja­maica Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (JAAA) head­quar­ters in Kingston on Tues­day.

The funds, to be dis­bursed through the In­ter­na­tion­al Ath­let­ics Foun­da­tion, are ear­marked for re­cov­ery path­ways and sup­port pro­grams specif­i­cal­ly for ath­letes, coach­es, and of­fi­cials af­fect­ed by the re­cent storm.

“We can re­cruit ex­ter­nal teams and agen­cies to come to the ta­ble to help,” stat­ed Coe. “And I’m de­light­ed to be able to an­nounce this morn­ing that we will make avail­able $100,000 to help with those path­ways and those pro­grams.”

Coe, who is mark­ing his tenth year as head of the sport’s glob­al gov­ern­ing body, out­lined a dual ap­proach to sup­port­ing Ja­maica’s re­cov­ery.

Be­yond the im­me­di­ate fi­nan­cial grant, he re­vealed plans for a char­i­ty 5K run in Kingston this April, or­gan­ised in col­lab­o­ra­tion with May­or An­drew Swa­by. Coe will serve as the event’s pa­tron, with all pro­ceeds di­rect­ed to­ward broad­er hur­ri­cane re­lief ef­forts.

The World Ath­let­ics pres­i­dent’s two-day vis­it in­clud­ed high-lev­el meet­ings with Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness and Op­po­si­tion Leader Mark Gold­ing, em­pha­sis­ing the non-par­ti­san na­ture of the re­lief ini­tia­tive.

He al­so en­gaged with var­i­ous stake­hold­er groups and took time to vis­it track pro­grams at Ja­maica Col­lege and Ex­cel­sior High School.

CMC