RAYMOND GRAHAM, Star Writer

The 2012 track and field season will get under way next Saturday with the 19th staging of the very popular Wata/JC meet, to be staged on the school grounds starting at 8:30 a.m.

The meet, which is the first on the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) calendar, is a qualifier for the Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships, set for its 102nd staging in the last weekend of March. As usual, most of the top high school teams are expected to assemble at the Old Hope Road institution grounds for the meet, with the coaches using the meet to assess the preparation of their athletes following the long Christmas break.

With several of the teams seeing their preparation affected by the election campaign, most of the coaches will be anxious to see how their charges perform in their first competitive outing.

As usual, the organising committee normally pays tribute to an outstanding member of its fraternity who has contributed to the school sports programme. This year, the honouree will be Dr R. Danny Williams who has been board chairman of that institution since 2005. As board chairman, Williams has led the transformation of the institution and his indelible mark can be seen in the physical appearance of the school and quality of all its endeavours. Under his stewardship as board chairman and his sterling support for the sports programme, Jamaica College has won every schoolboy football title on offer, except the Under-16 title.

The meet will be open to schools, clubs and institutions from all over the country with competition divided into two categories. The first competitive category will be for schools of all types with participation in classes I-III for boys and I-IV for girls. The age groups will be U-19, U-16 and U-14 for boys and classes I-III for U-19, U-17, U-15 and U 13 for girls.

The second category will comprise a mix of clubs and institutions with males and females in separate competitions. Events on the track will be the 100m, 800m, 1500m, 300m (F) and 5000m. There will also be 70m, 80m, 100m and 110 metres hurdles. Field events for this year's staging will be long jump, discus, high jump, shot put and pole vault.