Off an im­pres­sive Di­a­mond League bronze, dou­ble Olympic medal­list Ke­ston Bled­man will line up to de­fend his 100m crown for the sec­ond time at the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tions' three-day NGC/Sagi­cor Na­tion­al Open Cham­pi­onships, which runs off to­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Port-of-Spain, from 5.30pm.

Bled­man, who ran 10.23 sec­onds at the IAAF event in New York, last Sat­ur­day, is ex­pect­ed to face stiff com­pe­ti­tion from on-fire Richard Thomp­son, who fin­ished sec­ond be­hind Bled­man in the 100m at the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships last year.

Thomp­son is off a blis­ter­ing 100m gold at the Pure Ath­let­ics Last Chance Meet, in Flori­da, USA, last month, where he clocked 9.74 sec­onds.

In the women's equiv­a­lent, the world's fourth-ranked Michelle-Lee Ahye is favoured to take gold fol­low­ing her run­ner-up per­for­mance last year, while De­on Lendore, who re­cent­ly com­plet­ed a his­tor­i­cal NCAA clean-sweep with Texas A&M will line up to de­fend his ti­tle in the Men's 400m against .

Open­ing the cham­pi­onship to­day is the men's 10,000m fi­nal. The pre­lim­i­nar­ies of the men's 110m hur­dles will close pro­ceed­ings, be­fore the event re­sumes to­mor­row with the of­fi­cial open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at 2 pm, fol­lowed by the men's shot put fi­nal at 3 pm.

On Sun­day, ac­tion will open with de­cathlon and hep­tathlon events, from 2.30pm and will con­clude with the men and women's 4x100m and 4x400m re­lays just be­fore 7 pm.

Com­pe­ti­tion is ex­pect­ed to be stiff as it comes less than a week be­fore the nam­ing of T&T's ath­let­ics team for the Com­mon­wealth Games, which will run from Ju­ly 23-Au­gust 3, in Glas­gow, Scot­land.

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