Championships under the current format.

With Cedarbridge Academy set to open in September, a new beginning dawns for high school athletics as current rivalries between institutions are eliminated.

As a result, officials are preparing special ceremonies and activities to mark 1997 as the end of an era.

Competition will take place in three age categories -- under 13, under 15 and over 15, with several CARIFTA Games athletes part of it. Among them will be Raneika Bean, who last year set the under 13 girls high jump record with a leap of five feet, two inches.

Others include Tariq Hewey, who has been timed in 10.5 second for the 100 metres, as well as another sprinter, Jarita Dill, and middle distance runner Patrina Swan.

The Championships are slated for April 15 and 16 at National Stadium.

Bermuda's 11-member CARIFTA Games squad departs for Bridgetown, Barbados, today to take part in the annual track and field festival.

Former top sprinter Gregory Simons is accompanying the team as head coach to the three-day event that starts April 4, along with manager Roger Lee, assistant coach Vernall Burns and chaperone Gail Scott.

The team is one of the youngest ever to represent the Island, with only two of last year's participants returning in Hewey and Dill. Hewey won silver in both the 100 and 200 metres, while Dill was fourth and fifth in the same events on the female side.

Hewey and Dill are the Bermuda's only entrants in the under-20 division -- even though Dill is 17 and Hewey, 16 -- clear indication of the Bermuda Track and Field Association's tendency toward youth.

Meanwhile, the under-17 division sees the other nine team members, including a 12-year-old (800m and 1,500m runner Erica Frith), two 13-year-olds (Richard Walcott and Latanya Dickinson) and four 14-year-olds (Gabriel Wilkinson, Patrina Swan, Janine Scott and Raneika Bean). Rounding out the squad are 15-year-old sprinters Kondwani Williams and Kemar Curtis.