AP Invitation on hold pending new  date for Tokyo Olympics
Aliann Pompey
Aliann Pompey

By Rawle Toney

GUYANA’s Commonwealth Games women’s 400M Gold (2002) and silver (2010) medallist, Aliann Pompey, announced yesterday that her AP Invitation Track and Field event will be suspended pending the announcement of the new date for the Olympics by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The Tokyo Olympics was postponed until 2021 after talks between Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and the International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, with both agreeing that the game’s postponement was the most appropriate response to the global disruption caused by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Concerns regarding the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus has led to the postponement of almost every sporting event around the world, and Pompey, who represented Guyana at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics, said she is happy to play her part in helping to keep the local and regional athletes safe.

This year’s AP Invitation was originally schedule for June 4, at the National Track and Field Centre, and according to Pompey, “given the fact that this year’s API forms part of the World Athletics Continental Tour for the calendar year and is a major part of the preparation for athletes looking to qualify for Tokyo 2020, we want to ensure that the event offers athletes from around the world the best possible way, without hindrance, a chance to make their Olympic dream [come] true.

The IOC announced the postponement of the Games to take place no later than a year from the scheduled date and as such, API wants to leave the door open to the possibility of having the meet, should the Games be sometime sooner than next summer,” Pompey revealed.

Nonetheless, Pompey said her AP Invitational will follow the lead of World Athletics,

The National Sports Commissions (NSC) and the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) in adhering to the requirements and recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO), as well as regional and local health officials, joining the rest of the sporting world battling the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic.

The Olympic Games and Paralympics Games will continue to be called the “Olympic and Paralympics Games Tokyo 2020” even if they are held next year, and the Olympic flame will stay in Japan as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times.

Pompey will hold the Invitational for the fifth time this year, with the inaugural meet hosting 11 athletes who went on to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio.

Meanwhile, the AP Invitational will be part of the recently structured World Athletics 2020 Continental Tour. 

 The Continental Tour will be divided into three levels: Gold, Silver and Bronze – whose status will be determined by the quality of competition and prize money on offer.

World Athletics is investing in the Gold level meetings, which will offer US$200,000 in prize money, to increase the number of high-quality competitive opportunities available to showcase our sport’s best athletes.

 Area associations will be responsible for managing the Silver (US$75,000 prize money) and Bronze level competitions (US$25,000). There will be ten Silver and up to 50 Bronze meetings.

Those disciplines that are not included in this year’s Wanda Diamond League final – 200m, 3000m steeplechase, triple jump, discus – will be core events in the Continental Tour Gold meetings, as will the hammer throw. Each will have guaranteed prize money of US$20,000 at each meeting.

Performances in those events will attract the same level of world ranking points as the core Diamond League disciplines, and the overall tour winners will receive wildcard entry to the World Athletics Championships- Oregon 2021.

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