NEW LOOK BSSAC

By Randy Bennett

he show must go on, even if it means less action on the track.

A revamped Dasani Powerade Barbados Secondary Schools Athletic Championships (BSSAC) will be held at the spanking, newly laid track at the Usain Bolt Sports Complex in just under two weeks.

However, this year’s event will feature no Zonal Championships and schools will only be allowed to enter one athlete per race.

The Zonal Championships were scheduled to begin on March 11, but with a new format now being used, the semifinals will be held on March 18 and 19, with the finals scheduled for March 21 and 22.

This was disclosed during a press conference at Harrison College this afternoon, where BSSAC organisers gave an update on the status of this year’s championships.

Chairman of BSSAC’s organising committee, Sonja Goodridge said she had been given the assurance by Head of the Academy of Sport at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, Dr Rudolph Alleyne that the track at the Usain Bolt Sports Complex would be ready “in a few days”.

“I can tell you that as of our last conversation yesterday [Wednesday] that the track has been laid and that’s great news. He assured me that the lines were being put in from today and that it would take a little while, but he does have two crews that are working and he believes that within the next few days everything will be ready,” Goodridge revealed.

“Now we do know that they may have some cleaning up to do, but we are happy to know that all looks good for the BSSAC track section of the meet and that it will be coming off as we planned.”

However, BSSAC’s assistant meet director and technical manager, Dorian Best admitted that they were forced to make some adjustments to the event.

He said based on the time allocated to BSSAC for the use of the venue, a decision had been taken to scrap the Zonal Championships and move the track events to the semifinal stage.

As a result, he said it meant schools would not be allowed to enter more than one athlete per event as usual.

“Last year we had three zones. This year we were intending to have two zones. Two zones obviously allow us the opportunity to have somewhat of an eliminations, but this year we will not have Zonal Championships, and therefore we as a BSSAC management committee needed to find a way to come down to the semifinal stage,” Best explained.

“So instead of having two competitors per school, per event in the track portion, we are only going to have one competitor per school.”

He said physical education teachers had been consulted about the changes and the “overwhelming majority” supported the decision.

Best gave the assurance though, that the changes would not impact on the quality of this year’s BSSAC.

“Obviously in any change, especially this one with one athlete per school, you will have some down side to it. I don’t think we have affected our competition by having one competitor [per school]…we’re still taking 24 of our best across all of our schools,” he pointed out.

Meet director Dave Small disclosed that BSSAC tickets would go on sale from Monday at Duty Free Barbados and Esso Black Rock.

randybennett@barbadostoday.bb