as the date for the Heritage Day Classic meet at National Stadium this year.

Although the Youth and Sports Department has been unable to give an exact date on when current work on correcting problems to the track at the stadium will be completed, the BTFA have gone ahead and scheduled a date for the event in order to proceed with plans to invite foreign competitors.

The BTFA claim that the Bermuda Government has indicated that the stadium will be completed by the end of May, but because government was unable to commit a specific date the association took the initiative and settled on an exact time themselves.

"We just had to go ahead and firm things up ourselves for June 11, hopefully everything will turn out already,'' said vice president Stanley Douglas. "We really wanted to stage the event on May 28, but with work at the stadium reported to have been slowed down because of the rain we have had we have had to come up with an alternative date.'' Meet Director Mike Charles agreed that it was important to settle on a date to enable some of the elite athletes based abroad -- locals and foreigners -- to fit the meet into their schedules.

"Fliers are already out, but now we can let these people know the exact date when the meet will be held and not just an approximate one,'' said Charles.

He had already indicated that the association would like to make this year's event the biggest ever, but in order to do so sponsorship to the tune of $15,000 was required to bring in some top names like American Olympic record-holder in the triple jump Mike Conley.

Without being specific, Charles said that the corporate community (exempt companies included) were responding well to invitations to act as sponsors and was hopeful that Eddie Fisher's fund-raising endeavours would be well supported by the overall community.

One foreigner who is keen to participate at the Heritage Classic revealed Charles is American Matt Kendall who finished third in the Bank of Butterfield's Front Street Mile in January.

The unavailability of the stadium has affected the training programme for athletes attempting to qualify for the Junior Pan Am Games which is scheduled for Winnipeg, Canada, in mid-July.

They are presently making use of the facilities at Berkeley Institute.

STAR ATTRACTION -- The Bermuda Track and Field Association want this year's Heritage Day Classic to be the biggest ever and are hoping to attract top names like American Olympian Mike Conley.