Juniors on trial for CARIFTA spots

Top Under-17 and Under-19 athletes will this weekend be vying for places at the 53rd staging of the CARIFTA Games - to be held at the Kirani James Stadium in Grenada over the Easter weekend. The three-day Trials for the games will begin on Friday at the National Stadium.

Competition will get under way with the girls' Under-17 shot put final at 1:30 p.m., with action on the track set to begin at 2 p.m. with the preliminary round of the girls' Under-17 100 metres.

There will be eight field event finals on the opening day, while on the track there will be finals in the 100m and 1500 metres. The first track final will see the Under-17 girls battling in the 1500m at 5 p.m. and will feature the Edwin Allen duo of Denique Palmer and Aneka Lowe, along with Ashley Shepperd of Holmwood Technical.

The boys' Under-17 1500m final will feature Rikardo Lee and Bevin Davey of Jamaica College (JC), Luke Plummer of Sydney Pagon and Markland Williams of Denbigh.

Jovi Rose of Holmwood will lead the charge in the girls' Under-20 event, with Hydel's Rihana Morgan, Alexia Palmer of Sydney Pagon and Tabbrell Williams of Alphansus Davis set to be among the starters.

Joel Morgan of Edwin Allen will be the overwhelming favourite in the boys' Under-20 1500m, with his main competition coming from Rasheed Pryce of JC and Raheem Palmer of Alphansus Davis.

Following preliminary round action earlier in the day, all 100 metres finals will be contested on the opening day of competition, with the girls' Under-17 scheduled for 5:45 p.m., to be followed by the boys' Under-17, girls' Under-20 and boys' Under-20.

The girls' Under-17 will feature Rihana Scott of Ferncourt, Trecia-Ann Grant of St Jago High and Shayan Smith of St Mary High.

The Under-20 girls will be spearheaded by defending CARIFTA Games champion Shanoya Douglas of Holland High. Set to feature in the boys' Under 20 are Gary Card of the University of Technology, Malike Nugent of Excelsior High, Tyrece Foreman of St George's College, Sanjay Seymore of William Knibb and Nyrone Wade of Kingston College.

Friday's opening day will also have preliminary-round action in the 400 metres starting at 3:30 p.m., with the girl's Under 17 finals slated for Saturday's second day.