Jonesboro unexpectedly to host USA Track and Field Junior Olympic Championships through 2025
by July 13, 2023 9:19 am 2,331 views
About a month ago, the city of Jonesboro was offered an unexpected opportunity. USA Track and Field Region 9 was slated to have its Junior Olympic Championships at a facility in Missouri.
The facility was undergoing some renovations and the organization had to move quickly to find another venue, Jonesboro Advertising and Promotion Board Chairman Jerry Morgan said. USATF contacted Arkansas State University and the school agreed to allow the track meet to be held on the ASU-Jonesboro campus.
There was only one problem. To bring the track meet to Northeast Arkansas, the, A&P board had to come up with $12,500 to pay for hotel rooms for meet officials among other costs. The A&P board has up to $15,000 it can use each year on discretionary expenditures, and it was used to bring the track meet here, Morgan said.
The five-day meet was held from July 5-9. Preliminary estimates indicate that as many as 1,900 athletes, coaches, family members and fans attended the event. City officials had to act in a matter of days to make the agreement work.
The quick action not only led to the meet being held in Jonesboro. USATF has agreed to hold the meet in NEA’s hub city in 2024 and 2025.
“I expect will get good feedback on this,” Morgan said. “Especially since it happened on such short notice.”
USATF Region 9 is comprised of Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The USATF National Junior Olympic Track & Field Championships, also known as the USATF Junior Olympics, is an annual track and field competition for American athletes between the ages of 7-18. It is organized by USA Track & Field and features six different age categories, each covering two years, according to the organization.
The USATF Region 9 Junior Olympic Championships is the second meet in the qualification series to Nationals. To qualify for this meet, athletes must be top 8 in their age division and event at the association (state) meet. The top 5 of each age group and event at regionals earn the right to compete at the national competition.
KAIT reported that Jonesboro High School standout Matthew Cooper took home gold Saturday for the Ralvis Raptors. He launched the shot put 47 feet, 11 inches to win in the boys 17–18-year-old division.
It will take city officials several weeks to tally up the number of hotel beds and the increase in sales tax spending that could be directly correlated from the track meet, Morgan said.
No matter how the numbers pan out, bringing nearly 2,000 people to Jonesboro for an unanticipated athletic event has to be a boon to the local economy, he added.