Michael Dyke, head coach of Edwin Allen’s girls’ track and field programme, says despite interruptions which led to a six-week delay in their preparations, he is confident they can lift the title at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs) come March.
Edwin Allen fell just short of the title last year, losing their crown to rivals Hydel High by 11 points in a nail-biting contest that came down to the final race.
The two schools have been at the forefront of high school girls’ athletics for the past four years, trading holds on the Champs title, with Edwin Allen winning in 2022 and 2024, while Hydel claimed victories in 2023 and 2025.
Edwin Allen, who have won 10 titles in the last 14 years, stand as the most dominant school in the past decade.
Dyke is confident his girls can continue their brilliant showing at Champs and said despite being six weeks behind in preparation, he is confident they will top the pile once again.
“I would say we are approximately about six weeks behind our regular training schedule, but the girls are showing a lot of resilience and they are working hard and are still determined to reclaim their title,” he said.
“The girls are determined and despite the setbacks, they have been working hard. They are working overtime and, based on the meets that we’d have gone to so far, I believe they are performing as well as any other team that we expect to be our main competitors,” he continued.
“So despite all of that, I believe we will be right there on the 28th of March.”
Edwin Allen’s preparation for Champs has been hampered by tragedies which has struck the school and its athletes at their core.
The first tragedy was the sudden passing of 15-year-old student-athlete Taniesha Gayle in September last year.
Gayle, a member of Edwin Allen’s medley relay team that won gold at Champs last year, had fallen ill during a training session before being taken to hospital, where she passed.
Major damage
A month later, the school would be further impacted by the passage of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa that damaged the school’s infrastructure, which included the team’s dorms.
With several of their athletes also based in western Jamaica, where Melissa made landfall, it meant the team was severely impacted by the hurricane.
Both tragedies, Dyke said, had put the programme behind where they had planned to be.
“We would have suffered some major damage to various classrooms and other buildings surrounding the school,” Dyke explained.
“Our dormitory facilities were specifically affected, but the impact would have been severe because we have a number of girls from the western region, like Westmoreland, St. Elizabeth, Montego Bay, those areas, and most of those girls were affected, if not all.”
Gayle’s passing has had a lasting impact on the team, and Dyke stated that they ensured all the athletes were given the space to mourn the loss of one of their own.
He also explained they took a month away from training to ensure all of their athletes were healthy and fit to compete.
“We also were affected by the passing of one of our athletes, Taniesha Gayle, who died after feeling ill at training and, after reaching the hospital, she eventually died,” Dyke said.
“It affected the girls significantly and it also set us back for a month. We did not train, and we ensured that they mourned and recovered, and we provided all the necessary support for them and also medical attention to make certain that everybody was fully ready and fit for the continuation of training.”
Dyke said the school’s budget has been stretched thin by Melissa recovery efforts, leaving the programme struggling.
Despite being the most successful programme in girls’ Champs over the past decade, the head coach said their location outside of the Corporate Area means it is a constant struggle to secure long-term sponsors.
As such, they have consistently relied on alumni to bridge the gap where their finances have fallen short.
“It would have caused us to spend more resources and more funding which we didn’t have already,” Dyke said.
“So we heavily depend on support from past students and other donors, and we are in a situation now where it has become very challenging to keep the team going smoothly because we have to maintain our feeding programme. We also have meets that we have to travel to, we have to rent buses, and we have to secure food and hydration and stuff like that,” he continued.
“The support is not where we want it to be, but we are trying our best to keep the team focused going forward into the 2026 Championship.”
