ORGANISING MEETING.
Those who have had the privilege to be in Beijing and witness the phenomena of the multi-Champions will return to earth next week ! Usain Bolt and the rest of the Jamaican team have shown what can be done by a small nation with limited human and other resources. Such is the lesson for us.
So we have started to organise the 2008 version of the Tarawa Inter-Primary Athletics Championships (TIPAC). All the 12 Primary Schools on South Tarawa have been notified and asked to express interest. An Organising Meeting has been called for Weds. Sept. 10th. which is at the beginning of Term 3. (They started two weeks of holidays on Friday, but it is very hard to persuade teachers to come together except during working time !)
KIRIBATI ATHLETICS ASSOCIATION to help.
The K.A.A. have prompted this first Meeting and will guide decisions and help with organising and officiating. It is up to the consensus of the teachers, but previous formats have become a TEAM competition covering three individual track events plus one Relay, plus one jump, plus one throw. There have been two age-groups, Juniors being Classes 1-3 and Seniors being Classes 4-6. The track events will be on a variety of distances and will reflect the different age-groups, as will the Relays. The jump is likely to be a Standing Broad Jump from a fixed board. The throw has previously been Shot Putt, but we may try to use the "Vortex" (Javelin trainer) with which all the schools have been equipped earlier this year.
HEATS and FINALS ?
If more than six schools express interest, we will have Heats on the Friday afternoon and Finals on Saturday morning. One limiting factor is the expense of hiring transport to bring teams to the National Stadium, maybe twice.
A minimum size team may include eight boys and eight girls as Juniors (to cover an 8-person Relay team plus five Individual events) and five boys and five girls as Seniors (to cover a 4-person Relay team plus five Individual events). This makes a total of 26, for which an open-backed truck will be required.
This has been calculated using the previous system of limiting each athlete to compete in only one Individual event and the Relay. The obvious idea is to increase participation. This has generally worked OK before, even when a school might have a potential "star" !
The booked dates are Friday Sept. 26th. and Saturday Sept. 27th. We pray that the Ministry (responsible for Sport) manages to ensure no clash !!!
Last Modified on 24/08/2008 08:18