$120,000 for Secondary athletics

THIS year’s Guardian General Limited’s (GGL) $120,000 National Secondary Schools Athletic Festival will be staged on January 31 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium. And the feature event, the GGL 5K Classic will carry a prize package of  $10,200 and trophies. The 5k, an outlet for Trinidad and Tobago’s young distance runners to progress to the regional and international stages, also serves as a platform for developing the talents of the nation’s youth and provides opportunities for the further development of values among students as outlined by organisers.

Next on the festival calendar, launched on Wednesday, is the GGL Track and Field Championships which will be hosted from March 17-18 also at the Hasely Crawford Stadium and will be the end result of athletes progression from school to zonal games at which each district will be represented by two athletes in all events. At the launch of this year’s festival Education Minister Hazel Manning said her ministry was pleased to be involved with GGL, and recognised the importance of such an event to the youth’s overall development. The Minister expressed hope in the ability of the festival to achieve this end and pledged her ministry’s support in view of the European Nations declaration of 2004 as the Year of Physical Education and Sport ahead of the United Nations celebration of the International Year of Physical Education and Sport in 2005.

She revealed that Physical Education has become one of the core areas of the school’s curriculum as it has been found to encourage tolerance, co-operation, respect and the opportunity for students to be involved in healthy physical activity. Minister Manning said the steps taken by her Ministry will serve to encourage students to seriously consider the benefits of Physical Education, and the forthcoming Track and Field Festival gives particular focus to one of the areas which will be examined.