KINGSTON, Ja­maica – Ja­maica Op­po­si­tion Spokesper­son on Labour and Sports, Wavell Hinds, is turn­ing up the heat on Min­is­ter Olivia Grange, de­mand­ing she pro­duce the World Ath­let­ics cer­tifi­cate for the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um track.

This comes af­ter the fa­cil­i­ty was con­spic­u­ous­ly ab­sent from the glob­al gov­ern­ing body’s of­fi­cial list of cer­ti­fied Class 1 tracks.

The World Ath­let­ics Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Sys­tem’s List of Cer­ti­fied Fa­cil­i­ties, pub­lished Au­gust 7, 2026, names 116 class one venues across the globe, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

Ja­maica’s Na­tion­al Sta­di­um, how­ev­er, is nowhere to be found.

The omis­sion di­rect­ly con­tra­dicts Min­is­ter Grange’s state­ment in Par­lia­ment on June 30, 2026, dur­ing her Sec­toral De­bate con­tri­bu­tion, where she claimed the track had been cer­ti­fied and that the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion was “in hand.”

“The Min­is­ter told Par­lia­ment that the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion was in hand, yet World Ath­let­ics’ of­fi­cial list of cer­ti­fied fa­cil­i­ties, pub­lished as at Au­gust 7, does not in­clude Ja­maica’s Na­tion­al Sta­di­um,” Mr Hinds stat­ed.

He ar­gued that the dis­crep­an­cy un­der­mines con­fi­dence in a fa­cil­i­ty vi­tal to the na­tion’s ath­let­ic fu­ture and called for im­me­di­ate trans­paren­cy.

“If the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ex­ists, then the Min­is­ter should have no dif­fi­cul­ty pro­duc­ing it and ex­plain­ing why Ja­maica is ab­sent from the of­fi­cial list. This is about giv­ing our ath­letes and the Ja­maican peo­ple clar­i­ty,” Hinds added.

In his for­mal chal­lenge, the Op­po­si­tion Spokesper­son has de­mand­ed that Min­is­ter Grange an­swer three key ques­tions.

The for­mer West In­dies bats­man, now politi­cian, wants to know the ex­act date the track was cer­ti­fied; the cer­tifi­cate num­ber, is­sue date, and va­lid­i­ty pe­ri­od; and the rea­son for Ja­maica’s ex­clu­sion from World Ath­let­ics’ pub­lished list if the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is in­deed valid. (CMC)