… Olympic Qualification chance looms

TRACK and Field will be back in action over the weekend as the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) hosts its first competitive meet of the year which includes a restricted amount of field events and races.
According to the president of the AAG, Aubrey Hutson, the event, stricken by the pandemic, is billed to commence at 10:00hrs at the Leonora Track and Field Centre on Sunday, February 14, and is expected to conclude around 16:30hrs.
After hosting three marathon events during the period between November and December of 2020, the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) was possibly satisfied with the association’s ability to conduct events under the pandemic guidelines.

The AAG was once again successful in receiving permission from the NCTF to host the scheduled meet that has been on its calendar for some time. However, the event initially planned was a Developmental Meet, but will now be merged with some interesting events.
Since the 2020 Summer Olympics is still forging ahead and CARIFTA is being rescheduled to July, the AAG-sanctioned event on Sunday will see the juniors competing in Developmental Meet events while the seniors will have their first chance to attempt Olympic Qualification with regular events. The president stated that he expects some keen matchups in the 100m event.
Hutson also disclosed that only throw event they will be attempting is the javelin while for the jumps, only the long and triple jumps are on the cards for Sunday. He added that AAG has planned to stage the other events not done on Sunday, in another few weeks during another meet.

Meanwhile, preparations for Sunday are coming along swimmingly in numerous aspects the president revealed.
Since no spectators are allowed in the venue which security will be verifying at the entrance, AAG has decided to have a Facebook Live Stream of the meet on the Association’s page to keep the athletes and fans, safe and satisfied.
In the athletes’ attendance aspect, the president revealed that the majority of the clubs have been training while some have remained dormant for reasons only known to them. But while those who chose to stay completely inactive have complained about preparation time, others have made the sacrifice to keep their gears well-oiled.
“One of the things I’ve grown to learn about this sport is that it’s not a team sport, but an individual sport and your future in this sport will depend largely on your personal approach. So, we

have to look out for those who want to move forward. We just can’t hold the whole system back because a few athletes chose not to train,” the AAG boss said.
Olympic Qualification Period
The qualifying period for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics was originally from May 1 to June 29, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the period was suspended from April 6 to November 30, 2020, with the end date extended to June 29, 2021.
Athletes who had met the qualifying standard during that time were still qualified, but those using world rankings would not be able to count performances during that time.
The qualifying time standards could be obtained in various meets during the given period that have the approval of the IAAF.