PREPARATIONS are in high gear as the Jamaica Paralympic Association (JPA) gets ready to host a three-day paralympic training clinic, March 13- 15, for boccia and track and field.
“This is the first time that we will be hosting alongside the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) a forum for coaches, athletes and administrators. Therefore, it will be historic as 12 of us are coming together to learn about para-sports and one of our aim is to ensure that the Jamaican landscape becomes a hub for international forums in sports,” he stated.
The activities will conclude with the Velocity Fest on March 16 at the National Stadium where athletes will showcase their newly acquired skills. Samuda revealed that this track meet will be a ‘dress rehearsal’ for an upcoming grand prix which will be hosted on home soil later this year.
“The Velocity Fest is a sanctioned meet which we applied for and the IPC granted. We are not only having an educational forum, but we’re merging it with an international sanctioned meet so we’re very pleased to be hosting it as this will be a dress rehearsal for us to have a grand prix meet in Jamaica as part of the calendar of events for the IPC,” he added.
Samuda stated that the participating countries, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Bermuda, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands are all eagerly anticipating the training clinic.
“Jamaica has always been the hub for paralympic sports and they have indicated that they’re going to seize this opportunity in order to become certified internationally. This is just the start as come April we will again be hosting an international forum, but this time in partnership with the Commonwealth Games Federation,” Samuda said.
Neville Sinclair, National Paralympic head coach, stated that training is going well as he hopes the team will use the Velocity Fest to reach the qualifying marks for upcoming games.
“Training is going well despite the short period of time, but everyone has been putting out their best efforts. Hopefully on March 16 we can have all qualifying for our upcoming games,” he added.
