ÐÓ°ÉÐÔ°É

Past students of St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) are very prominent among the 62 track and field athletes recently selected to represent Jamaica at this month's Tokyo Olympics.

In the past, student athletes, especially females, from Vere Technical and St Jago High were the most dominant among the selectees. Vere dominated the annual Girls' Championships for a long time during the 1970s, 80s and part of the 90s producing top level talent like Merlene Ottey, Veronica Campbell Brown, Lacena Golding Clarke, Debbie-Ann Parris, Deon Hemmings, Michelle Ballentine, Aleen Bailey, Inez Turner, Beverley McDonald, and Astia Walker. Their main rivals at the high school championships, St Jago High, were not far behind as the likes of Juliet Campbell, Michelle Freeman, Delloreen Ennis-London, Melaine Walker, Kerron Stewart and Kenia Sinclair excelled at the Olympics and at the World Championships.

Fast forward to 2021 and there has been a swing away from the traditional giants. St Elizabeth Technical, the school which produced top Olympians Winthrop Graham (400m hurdles), Brigitte Foster-Hylton (100m hurdles) and Shericka Williams (400m), lead the way with most athletes selected to represent the country. Six of their past athletes are on the Tokyo 2020 team, four men and two women. Commonwealth Games 110 metres hurdles gold medallist Ronald Levy leads the way while Kemar Mowatt and Leonardo Ledgister will run the 400m hurdles. Nigel Ellis is on the 4x100m team while on the women's team Stacy-Ann Williams and Junelle Bloomfield are in the 4x400m pool.

Calabar High with five athletes has the next highest representation with three discus throwers led by World Championships silver medallist Fedrick Dacres. The other two are Traves Smikle and Chad Wright. They are joined by sprinters Oblique Seville and Christopher Taylor. Hydel High and Papine High are two new schools with athletes doing well at the senior level and they will have four and three athletes, respectively, on the Olympics team. Roneisha McGregor (400m), Shadae Lawrence (discus), Charokee Young (mixed 4x400m) and Shian Salmon, a reserve for the 400m hurdles are the athletes from Hydel.

Papine's Tiffany James-Rose, the first Jamaican female to win 400m gold medal at the global level when she triumphed at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Bydgoszcz , Poland, in 2016 is on the team. James-Rose will be a member of the 4x400m mixed team. She is joined by long jump World champion Tajay Gayle and Candice McLeod (400m).

Vere and St Jago are still holding their own as they will have four representatives each in Tokyo. Four of Vere's former stars down for individual events are Shericka Jackson(100, 200m), Britany Anderson (100m hurdles), Kimberly Williams and Shanieka Ricketts (both in triple jump). St Jago's representatives are Yohan Blake (100 and 200m, Sean Bailey (400m), Nathon Allen (400m) and Tissana Hickling (long jump).