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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

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Caribbean sports image suffers blow - Part II By FRED STURRUP ~ NG Associate Editor ~ frederick@nasguard.com: According to early information about the staging of the first ever Caribbean Games, the government of Trinidad & Tobago shelled out seed funds of one million dollars. There was a plan also to assist further, I understood. Now that the games have been canceled, what now? Has all of the funding been used? Will there be an appropriate accounting done and financial reports provided for the consumption of the public? Trinidad & Tobago provided the upfront funds. Also, the base for the games' organization indeed was in that country. However, the games organization was the business of the Caribbean and more needs to be known about the situation. The threat of swine flu was given as the reason for the cancellation but there ought to be a detailed report of the process up to the decision by Trinidad authorities last weekend. Will the Caribbean Games die the same death of the West Indies Federation Games (WIFG) of the very early 1960s? After one official WIFG, the sports leaders of the area were unable to continue on. The concept of the Caribbean Games cannot logically be faulted. The African Games, the Asian Games, the Commonwealth Games, the European Games and Cups are testimony to the considered value of such events. They do a lot for sports development of those respective groupings. Most of the English-speaking Caribbean participate in the Commonwealth Games and a smaller version of our own sports extravaganza is in order. I liked also the down-sized format of just five disciplines with track and field as the poster sport of the Caribbean Games. This made a lot of sense and to me, is quite workable. Anytime though, an organizing committee has $1 million to work with and is unable to secure the participation of the marquee Caribbean athletes, something is definitely wrong. No, nothing at all is wrong with the idea of a Caribbean Games. Nothing was wrong with the West Indies Federation Games either. Back then, the sports leaders responsible were unable to do the job and the WIFG failed. What does the future hold for the Caribbean Games? Will the event be still-born? Cuba has been designated the location for the 2013 Caribbean Games. Right now, about $1 million later, everything is up in the air. I wonder how Trinidad & Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning feels about the turn of events. Wednesday, June 24, 2009