Teddy McCook

The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, is the new home of the IAAF regional High Performance Training Centre (HPTC), replacing the University of Technology (UTech), which had hosted the programme since its inception in 2001.

President of the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC), Neville 'Teddy' McCook, explained that the decision was taken to afford greater inclusion of female talent from across the world, as the UWI offers more space and better facilities than its neighbour.

Said McCook: "The coaches, who are of course Glen Mills and Fitz Coleman, for some years have been pressing me because they wanted to have female athletes and we did not have the facilities (at UTech) and there were some deficiencies that were experienced from time to time.

"The president of the IAAF was also putting pressure on me to get more female athletes involved in the programme, and the facilities that we had could not facilitate males and females at the same time."

Sprinting and hurdling

The HPTC was established out of a need to raise the quality of athletes throughout the world with each region being assigned a centre with a particular focus. Jamaica's HPTC is charged with developing the sprinting and hurdling disciplines.

However, McCook pointed out that the Jamaica batch of athletes from all over the world were beginning to out-grow the UTech facilities, which were also utilised by the Stephen Francis-led MVP Track Club. MVP features the likes of Shelly-Ann Fraser, Brigitte Foster-Hylton, Asafa Powell, Shericka Williams and Melaine Walker.

"I was trying to see how best we could stay and honour the full agreement with UTech because it's always very important to really stop and evaluate someone that has taken the first step with you, so to speak, and it was indeed difficult for us to look outside. But, as we grew, we were continuously training at UWI because we had to leave UTech to come over to UWI and train, where we had access to the weights-room facilities, the swimming pool facilities," McCook stated.

The new arrangement will see up to 20 HPTC athletes being accommodated by UWI, and McCook is happy with the terms.

"This is a major plus, and you are seeing a lot of athletes internationally coming here and performing at a higher level. We are getting results and people are seeing the results. As a matter of fact, when we had our council meeting in Berlin, the Jamaica HPTC had the best results," McCook boasted.