NAS­SAU–Carif­ta games stake­hold­ers yes­ter­day an­nounced changes to the an­nu­al meet, set to come in­to ef­fect by the next edi­tion sched­uled for the French Is­land of Mar­tinique.

The num­ber of ath­letes per coun­try has been in­creased from 70 to 80 while the age lim­it­ed of par­tic­i­pants has been raised from un­der 17 to un­der 18, sim­i­lar to the Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean (CAC) Cham­pi­onships.

"Ja­maica moved the mo­tion for the num­ber of ath­letes per team to be in­creased from 70 to 80 and it was sup­port­ed in a vote 11-8," said Garth Gayle, Sec­re­tary of the Ja­maica Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (JAAA).

"The small­er coun­tries have the fares, but again, at the end of the day, com­mon sense pre­vailed. Each coun­try now has the rights to send two com­peti­tors per event." Pres­i­dent of British Vir­gin Is­lands Ath­let­ics As­so­ci­a­tion, Dean Green­away, said the changes bring Carif­ta Games, one of the world's pre­mier events, in line with the IAAF and mea­sures CAC in­tro­duced in 2012.

Changes have al­so been made to the shot put, dis­cus, javelin and the sprint hur­dles.

In the boy's Un­der-20 at Carif­ta Games, 16-year-old ath­letes (17-year-old in the same year of com­pe­ti­tion) are asked to throw 1.75k dis­cus, 6k shot put, 800g javelin and 0.99m/110m hur­dles.

At CAC, World Youth the fol­low­ing are used: 1.50k dis­cus, 5k shot put, 700g javelin, 0.91 110m hur­dles.

The 300m hur­dles have been changed to 400m hur­dles, the girls' pen­tathlon changed to hep­tathlon while the boy's hep­tathlon has been al­tered to oc­tathlon. CMC