St Jago's coach bemoans lack of proper training facility

With twenty-six days to go to the ISSA Boys and Girls Athletics Championships, head coach of St Jago High's girls team Keilando Goburn has conceded that the unavailability of their track has adversely affected their preparation.

Despite finishing third at this week's Central Championships behind 2015 ‘Champs’ winners Edwin Allen and Holmwood Technical, Goburn says his charges have been facing a difficult task to get ready for the five day championships next month.

“We basically have no field. Our field is being upgraded. We basically have to be cutting and pasting in terms of training. There are lot of things that we would have been doing to finetune and sharpen up the athletes and we are unable to do that right now. We were told last week by the contractors that it (the field) will be handed over by the end April; by then ‘Champs’ will be long gone. So that’s a struggle for us now and we have to be revisiting some of our objectives that we had set at the beginning of the season,” noted Goburn.

Goburn revealed that they've been working out at three different locations, the Prison Oval,  Stadium East and the Rivoli field across from the Monk Street-based school.

He provided an update on 2014 Youth Olympic 200m gold medallist Natalliah Whyte, who is the defending champion for the class one sprint double at ‘Champs’

“She’s carrying a strain in her calf….based on what we are getting from the physiotherapist,things should be ok (for ‘Champs’). She could have competed at Central Champs but we are just playing it cautious because at the end of the day you will be measured by Boys and Girls Champs,” said Goburn.