By ELTON TUCKER, Assistant Sports Editor
THE VMBS BOYS and Girls Championships 2004 promises to be a thriller.
Athletes from more than 100 of the island's high schools, broken down into 85 boys and 89 girls teams, will be in action tomorrow and over the next three days at the National Stadium. Action starts tomorrow at 8:30 a.m.
The battle for top honours in both the boys and girls sections will be fierce. No fewer than nine schools, four boys and five girls, have the potential to lift the championship trophy come Saturday night.
Defending boys champions Kingston College, seeking a record 27th title, are early favourites to retain their title, so too girls champions Holmwood Technical who will be attempting to prove that last year's first win was no fluke.
However, uneasy is the head that wears the crown and Calabar, Jamaica College and St. Jago are all bent on dethroning the purple and white standard bearers from North Street.
On the female side Holmwood's girls will be strongly challenged by Edwin Allen High, Vere Technical, St. Andrew High and St. Jago's girls.
New KC head coach Lennox Graham expects a close contest but said his team is ready.
"There are a lot of good things coming from other teams and as such the meet will be competitive. But we are confident in our abilities and we will be coming to win," Graham said.
He admitted that it will be difficult to get up to the 242 points they scored last year.
"We have lost stalwarts such as Kimani Williams (400m and 4x400m) and Kimani Kirton in the throws and it will be challenging for us to duplicate the amount of points we tallied last year."
Worked hard
KC will depend a lot on their strength in Class 1 with Fabian Morgan (shot put and discus), Carlos Mattis long, triple and high jumps, Alain Bailey (high jump and long jump) and Andre Wellington (100m and 200m).
Holmwood's Maurice Wilson was confident that his girls would retain their title when he spoke to STAR Sports on Sunday.
"I would be very disappointed if we lost. We have worked hard and have come a far way this season so I expect to come out on top. I would also like to win this year's championships as a send off gift for some athletes who have served the team and the country well. Athletes like Tracy-Ann Rowe, Althea Duncan and Peta-Gaye Beckford."
KC's arch rival Calabar High have one of their best teams of recent years and assistant coach Kevin Pryce said the 19-time champions have the talent to top the championships.
Calabar's strength is in Class 3. They are hoping to make a clean sweep of the track events from 200m to 800m and the sprint relay.
Pryce said: "We have two outstanding guys in Tesfa Hamilton (200m and 400m) and Shawn Robinson in the 800m."
Hamilton has not lost a 400m race all season while Robinson is unbeaten in the 800m.
Calabar will also rely heavily on the talented Josef Robertson in the Class 1 400m, 400m hurdles open, 4x100m and 4x400m.
Like KC, St. Jago's boys are strong in Class 1 where Markeino Buckley who clocked a persnal best 52.36 over 400m hurdles at the Carifta Trials is the leading light.
Lift double
Buckley and Leonard McLeggon will also go in the 110m hurdles while Steve Hammond will go head to head with KC's Morgan in the throws.
JC's head coach John Mair, a 1988 Olympian and many-time World Championship sprint representative, will be banking on his Class 2 team to lift the Old Hope Road school at the Championships.
His main hope is last year's Class 3 sprint champion Winston Barnes who has had times of 10.78 and 21.9 this season and could lift the double in his first year in the class. He will be accompanied in the sprints by Marlon Richards and both should ensure that JC past the post first in the relays.
"The relay team should not lose if we get the stick around," Mair said on Sunday.
Also expected to score well in the class is hurdler Romaine Gordon who is back after winning first time out in the class last year. Mair is also looking to Orlando Duffus to win the high jump where he has a best this year of 1.95m.
With the girls having more events and an extra class it is even more difficult to call the winners.
Holmwood, unlike many of the other teams, depend a lot on quality and not depth. With this in mind Wilson is taking only a team of 30 to the championships.
He is keeping somethings up his sleeve but he thinks Holmwood have the quality to remain champions.
Season-best
Wilson expects to score heavily in the top two classes. He is eyeing a 100m to 800m sweep in Class 2.
"I expect Central Champs sprint double winner Anasticia Le-Roy to duplicate that showing at Champs. Sonita Sutherland who ran 53.1 at Carifta Trials should win the 400m and if Le-Roy puts a foot wrong can defeat her in the 200m. Vanessa Boyd can win the 800m while I expect Rose-marie Whyte to win the long jump where she has a season-best of 6.15m and will be among the top four in the high jump."
In Class 1 the stars will be Anneisha McLaughlin and Tracy-Ann Rowe in the sprints, Peta-Gaye Beckford in the jumps and the sprint relay where they should easily go under the record. Wilson has also predicted that Holmwood will win at least three open events, the 4x400m, triple jump and shot put.
Homlwood's strongest challenge could well come from Edwin Allen High where coach Michael Dyke is banking on a middle distance barrage to dethrone his best friend Wilson.
"I believe the team which gets to 250 points first will win and I think we have the athletes to get up to that total," Dyke said last week.
Edwin Allen will be drawing lots of inspiration from the outstanding middle distance runner Kay-Ann Thompson who is expected to win Class 1 800m and 1,500m in record times.
Dyke is expecting a sweep of the top two places in Class 2 800m and 1,500m with Jodian Richards and Jessica McLeod. Richards won double gold at Carifta Games last year while McLeod is this year's Gibson Relays 1,500m champion.
In Class 3 Dyke also has his sights firmly on 'one-twos' in the 800m and 1,500m where the competitiors are Marvia Lewin and Trudy-Ann Williams.
St. Jago High, St. Andrew High and Vere Technical are also in the hunt for championship honours.
St. Andrew High are the darkhorses of the group. The Half Way Tree-based school has one of the best coaching teams in the island in Leacroft Bolt and Phillip Davy. The duo toop Manchester High to the title in the 1994 and 1995 and could do the same at St. Andrew High ten years later.
"St. Andrew High will have to be caught," Bolt said recently. "We have a better spread than last year and will get past the 142.5 points we got for fifth last year."
Anna-Kaye Campbell is expected to be the star for St. Andrew. She will compete in Class 1 long and high jumps, heptathlon and 4x100m.
"She will win the high jump and possibly the long jump," Bolt said. Utility athlete Arusha McKenzie is also expected to lift 'Andrews' with placings in the 400m, 800m, 400m hurdles open and 4x400m.
The wily Bolt has a number of 'secret weapons' to unleash at Championships including former Hydel Prep star Natasha Powell in Class 4 and Todea-Kaye Willis in Class 3 sprints.
St. Jago High's Raymond 'KC' Graham has ben quietly planning for the meet.
Graham has perhaps the best allround team of the top five with good athletes in all classes.
St. Jago High won the National Hurdles and Field Events Championships and reached all the relay finals at the Ginson Relays.
"We have the team on paper to win," Graham said. He is banking on Class 3 and Natasha Ruddock to spur his team to victory.
"Ruddock will compete in the 100m, 200m and 80m hurdles. She has done some fantastic times this year including 25.2 for 200m at the Queen's meet. Last year she fell in the 80m hurdles but Ruddock is the defending Carifta Under 17 sprint hurdles champion," Graham said.
Graham also expects Nadina Marsh to win the heptathlon for a third straight year and do extremely well in the Class 1 high jump and 100m hurdles.
Vere Technical have not been the force of former years but head coach Dwayne Jarrett is back and the team has been showing marked improvement in recent weeks.
"We should be in the top three," Jarrett said last week.
Like Holmwood and Edwin Allen Vere will be looking to score heavily in Class 2. Indira Spence (200m), Shanakay Wright (100m) and Trudy-Ann Clarke (200m) are expected to be the heavy scorers.
Sprinter Simone Facey and hurdler Keisha Brown in Class 1 are two who could decide the fortunes of Vere.
"All being well we expect Facey to win the 100m and have a close battle with Holmwood's McLaughlin in the 200m," Jarrett said. Brown clocked a personal best 13.61 at Gibson Relays and is the favourite for the event at the championships.
