Kingston College (KC) camp on test run

Kingston College's head coach Michael Russell expects a good all-round display from his team at today's 34th running of the Gibson Relays. Russell, however, has his sights set on the big picture, the March 24-27 Boys and Girls' Championships.

"We are using the Gibson Relays to prepare for Boys and Girls' Championships," said Russell who led KC to the title in only his second year as head coach of the powerful North Street-based school.

He added: "We are using the meet to test a few things but we should do well in all the sprint relays, 4x400m and 4x800m. All-round we are very strong."

The leading lights in the Class Three sprint relay are Mario Williams and LeVaughn Battick, while in Class Two the top two are Stefan Fennell and Antonio Henry. In Class One, the KC camp will look to JeVaughn Spencer and Kamali Henry.

defending champions

KC are the defending champions in the 4x400 metres and Russell, head coach of Jamaica's team to the 2007 IAAF World Youth Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic, is looking for another victory despite retaining only Rolando Berch from last year's winning quartet.

"Donahue Williams has stepped up and Berch is there so the team should run well," Russell said.

Calabar are out, but Russell believes the traditionally strong teams like Jamaica College, St Jago, Wolmer's and Munro College will be pushing KC all the way in many of the events.In the 4x400m, Russell expects strong challenges from St Elizabeth Technical, Herbert Morrison and Munro College.

The sprint relay, Russell said, will be very competitive. He pointed to St Jago and St George's College. However, he does not expect anyone to get near Calabar's sub-40 second record in the Class One 4x100."I expect the winning time to be over 40 seconds," Russell said.

- Elton Tucker