Jamaica’s elite athletes aiming for Olympic qualifying standards will get that chance and get paid to boot in the first edition of the Jamaica Olympic Association(JOA)/Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) Olympic Destiny Series set to begin next Saturday at the National Stadium in Kingston.

Last week, the JOA/JAAA launched the ‘Olympic Destiny’ agreement that is intended to provide a major boost to the nation’s athletes gearing up for the Olympic Games and other international meetings, provides funding to host the national senior and junior trials, as well as several other local track meets.

“The JOA will unite with the JAAA for the execution of four track-and-field events between May and June 2021, culminating in the National Senior and Junior Trials in June, which will be used to select our men and women at the upcoming Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games,” JOA Secretary General and CEO Ryan Foster explained then.

“The JOA in the first instance will invest $7 million in these four events – dubbed the JOA/JAAA Olympic Destiny – and a further $7.5 million in the National Senior and Junior Trials, a total investment of $14.5 million.”

ORGANISING COMMITTEE TO DETERMINE ‘PREMIER’ DESIGNATION

During the series, athletes will compete in 10 disciplines – men and women 100m, 100m hurdles, 110m hurdles, 800m for men; men and women 200m, men and women 400m hurdles and 400m men. There will also be men and women long jump, women triple jump, discus women and shot put men.

The Organising Committee will determine which six of the 10 disciplines will be designated ‘Premier’ and the other four ‘Classic’ for prize money each week. The designation will vary from week to week.

On the weeks when their event is designated ‘premium’, athletes who win collect J$100,000, second place $60,000, third place $40,000, fourth $20,000, fifth $14,000 and sixth $12000. For those events designated ‘Classic’, the winners will each get $70,000, second place $35,000 and third place $20,000, Fourth place gets $15,000 with fifth and sixth getting $12000 and $10000, respectively.

However, it will not be easy as in order to get paid the athletes will have to achieve specific minimum standards for their respective disciplines.

For men, that benchmark for the 100m is 10.40 seconds while for women it’s 11.30s. The men will have to run 20.70 or faster for the 200m while the women will be expected to achieve a time of 23.10 or faster.

For the 400m, that qualifying standard is 46.20 for the men and 52.20 for the women.

In the 400m hurdles, the standard is 50.40 for the men and 56.00 for the women.

For the 110m hurdles, the time will be 13.60 seconds and for women running the 100m hurdles, the time is 13.30s.

Men will be required to achieve 7.50m for the long jump with the women required to get to 6.00m or beyond. For the women’s triple jump, the standard is 13.50m. The standard for the shot put for men is 18m while the benchmark for the discus is 60m.