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All Schools track meet begins today
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Posted on May 14 2009
Northern Marianas Athletics will kick off the two-day 2009 McDonald’s All Schools Track and Field Championships today at the Oleai Sports Complex.
Competitions in running, jumping, and throwing events will begin at 4:30pm, while tomorrow’s events will start at 9am. The tournament is for elementary, junior high, and high school students.
Events lined up at 4:30pm were high jump and 3,000m steeplechase. The high jump event is only for U12, U14, and U8 age groups, while the 3,000m steeplechase will also have the U10 and U18 age categories.
Other events tonight are the 400m run and 800m run, and the 4x400m relay race. Medal presentations will be done after each event. The Top 3 finishers in each event will receive medals.
The All Schools meet will continue tomorrow with eight more events, namely, the 1,500m run, softball throw and long jump at 9am, 100m run and javelin throw at 10am, 200m run and shot put at 11am, and the 4x100m relay race at 1pm.
An awards ceremony will be held at 2pm with NMA awarding trophies to the Top 3 schools in each age group.
Schools will get points based on how their students finished in each event. First finisher gets 10 points, eight for second, six for third, four for fifth, two for fifth, and one for sixth.
Prior to this weekend’s meet, NMA held qualifying tournaments to determine the student-athletes who will make it to the annual event.
Only the Top 8 student-athletes in each event are eligible to compete in the All Schools. The two remaining slots are reserved for Rota and Tinian students. In case Tinian and Rota do not have participants in an event, the next two finishers will take the slots. Also, student-athletes are allowed to join only four events.
The meet was originally set for last Saturday, but NMA moved the schedule to give schools more time to prepare for the tournament.
“NMA officials would like to express its sincerest apologies to all participating schools, student-athletes, coaches, parents, and supporters for the inconvenience this changes had caused them,” NMA said in a media released.
