Olympic 100-metres gold-medallist Shell-Ann Fraser (centre) with (from left) Jacqueline Jackson, customer marketing executive of GlaxoSmithKline; Paul Francis, UTech meet director and Teddy McCook, president of the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC), at yesterday's launch of the second UTech Track and Field Classic. - Contributed

As many as 150 overseas athletes will compete in the second UTech Track & Field Classic which was launched yesterday on the MVP Track Club's training field at the University of Technology.

The meet which is scheduled for Saturday, April 18, will begin at 5 p.m. with the 4x100m for college and invitational females and end at 9 p.m. with the 4x400m male - college and invitational.

Last year only the national Stadium grandstand was opened for the inaugural meet. However, this year, the entire stadium will be used. The 150 athletes are expected from the United States, Cuba, the United Kingdom, Sweden, The Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Antigua, Liberia, Senegal, Colombia, Puerto Rico, South Korea and Norway.

Top schools

Meet director, Paul Francis, announced that all of MVP athletes including Olympic sprint relay gold-medallists Asafa Powell, Nesta Carter and Michael Frater, 400m hurdles gold-medallist Melaine Walker and 100m gold-medallist Shelly-Ann Fraser, as well as UTech's student athletes will be on show at the meet.

Additionally, all of the top local clubs and institutions such as Racers, G.C. Foster, UWI, Mico, Jamalco, Athletico, Jamtech and the High Performance Training Centre will also grace the track.

Fans will also get one last chance to see the top schools from the recently completed Boys' and Girls' Championships battle each other in the 4x100m and the 4x400m. This will be the teams' final match-up before leaving for the Penn Relays in which they will race for Championship of Americas titles. Top high schools such as Kingston College and Calabar in the boys section and Holmwood and Edwin Allen have already confirmed their attendance.

Anthony Davis indicated that "the UTech Track and Field Classic is one of four sports classics that the university inaugurated for the purpose of improving college-level sports locally and to provide needed funds to grow the development of sports at UTech".

In January the UTech Cricket Classic got off the ground in addition to the UTech Basketball Classic and the UTech Golf Classic which were held last November. He alluded to the fact that other sports classics are in the making and will be announced in the near future.

Teddy McCook, president of the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC), endorsed UTech's commitment to create high-level competition at the local level for the seniors, in order to complement what takes place at the junior level as seen at Boys' and Girls' Championships. He also brought greetings from the president of the IAAF, Lamine Diack.