A test track and field event, is set to be held by the end of this month or ear­ly next month to de­ter­mine whether the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of T&T (NAAA TT) can be held this year.

If this event takes place, ath­letes would on­ly be al­lowed to com­pete in one event on­ly, which is an ini­tia­tive to pre­vent gath­er­ing and large num­bers.

Like all oth­er sports, the an­nu­al Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship could not have been held last year due to the COVID19 pan­dem­ic.

Ephraim Ser­rette, the long-stand­ing NAAAs pres­i­dent told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Tues­day that in the midst of an ex­pect­ed chal­leng­ing year, the clubs have found a way to con­tin­ue train­ing, but his ad­min­is­tra­tion has strug­gled to stage com­pe­ti­tions:

"We are at present, de­vel­op­ing a pro­pos­al to send through SporTT, to the Min­istry of Health, to have a pos­si­ble test-event by the end of this month to ear­ly Feb­ru­ary."

"We are go­ing to make some ad­just­ments to the re­quire­ments for com­pe­ti­tion. The Board of the NAAAs will meet this af­ter­noon to make a fi­nal de­ci­sion on that."

This event, ac­cord­ing to Ser­rette, caters for two cat­e­gories on­ly, an un­der-17, which will in­clude un­der-14s, u-15s, and 16-year-olds, and an open cat­e­go­ry. Ser­rette stressed that young ath­letes must fit in­to the age-groups spec­i­fied to com­pete.

The event be­came nec­es­sary af­ter Ser­rette point­ed to gov­ern­ment's per­mis­sion a few months ago, for na­tion­al teams to re­sume train­ing, and for Olympic-bound ath­letes to pre­pare, there­by pre­vent­ing his ath­letes from hav­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to train.

Due to this, he said his ath­letes were not get­ting enough train­ing in, as they did not have a na­tion­al team in train­ing, but rather ath­letes train­ing for the Olympics. "We don't have na­tion­al teams in train­ing, we have ath­letes who are prepar­ing for Olympics, and the train­ing is just not enough. They need to com­pete so that they can get a sense of how their pro­gramme is pro­gress­ing, and to main­tain sharp­ness," Ser­rette ex­plained yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, ath­letes will on­ly be al­lowed to com­pete in one race on­ly, as the NAAAs at­tempt to main­tain the so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­col and avoid gath­er­ing.

"Clubs would have a max­i­mum of five ath­letes to reg­is­ter for an event and ath­letes will on­ly be re­quired to par­tic­i­pate in one event. So where in the past, ath­letes may have com­pet­ed in two or three events, for this test-meet we are ask­ing clubs to cor­po­rate with us, to en­ter in­to each event a max­i­mum of five events, and ath­letes will be al­lowed to com­pete in one. As they com­pete they will be re­quired to va­cate the sta­di­um," Ser­rette said.