media_artricles :: 2017

Bascombe leads T&T’s NACAC Age Group Team

More than 300 athletes are expected to converge on the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo on June 3-4 and June 10-11 for the Juvenile and Junior NGC/National Amateur Athletics Association of T&T (NAAATT) Championships.

This was confirmed by Events Committee Chairman, and NAAATT Second Vice-President, Allan Baboolal, at the launch of June's "Month of Championships" at the T&T North Room of the Radisson Hotel, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, on Wednesday.

Baboolal noted that just recently the NAAATT hosted the Combine Events Championship which featured more than 325 athletes which was quite a significant figure for competition in the decathlon and heptathlon events and while none of the clubs have submitted entries to date, the two weekends of competition for the juveniles and juniors are expected to no different.

He added, "Most of the country's top young athletes are certain to be on show as they will be competing with the aim of qualifying to the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Colombia.

In addition, the NAAATT will host the inaugural North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association Age-Group A & B Championships (Heptathlon- Pentathlon) under the auspice of the (IAAF) and NACAC) from June 17-18 at the same Hasely Crawford Stadium, venue.

The international event will display Heptathlon Infantile A ages 13-14 and Pentathlon Infantile B ages 11-12 years which will feature over 20 member nations from Anguilla to USA.

Speaking at the launch, Baboolal was quick to highlight the month of June as being "Championships Month".

"The Juvenile Championship will cater for the Under-14s, Under-12s and Under-10s, and they will compete over 60m, 80m and 100m.

The Junior Championships will feature athletes in the Under-20, Under-18 and Under-16, but there is expected to be some revision regarding the events since NACAC has voted to change from Under-18 to Under-17, so a petition will be presented probably next year to change from Under-18s to Under-17.

In explaining the reason for keeping the Under-18 and Under-17 age-group this year, Baboolal said, "For this year we don't want to leave them out which T&T will host next year at the NACAC Age Group Championship where the age-groups will be 11-12 and 13-14 in the Combine Events featuring 21 of 32 member countries.

For that Championship, each country represented will be allowed to field a maximum of eight athletes and four officials, so its not going to be a large event in terms of the number of participants.

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