WITH?A?PRICE tag of $1 million, a colourful blackbird mascot, teams filled with national netballers, volleyballers and Davis Cup tennis players, a supportive home crowd and familiar conditions, the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies will be hosting the 2011 UWI Games from May 18 to 27, with the main goal of adding to their seven previous crowns.
Defending champions Mona of Jamaica have a staggering 17 titles to the four captured by St Augustine of Trinidad and Tobago.
In a launch yesterday at the 3Ws Oval, deputy principal and chair of the Local Organising Committee, Professor Eudine Barriteau, said each contingent was bringing 135 athletes and 15 officials plus a host of supporters who would bring cheer to the South Coast businesses and hotels where the teams were staying.
The competitors from the three campuses and an observatory group from Open Campus will battle in athletics, basketball, cricket, netball, volleyball, swimming, lawn and table tennis, football and hockey.Â
Volleyball and basketball will be played at the Barbados Community College, swimming will take place at the Aquatic Centre, athletics at the National Stadium, tennis at Ocean View, while the other sports will be staged at Cave Hill.
Director of Sports at Cave Hill, Roland Butcher, said that the next time Cave Hill hosted the Games all of the competitions would be held there and the Open Campus would increase the number of teams to four.
The high standard on the field of play is also being demanded off the field as, for the first time, drug testing will be conducted according to the standards of the World Anti-Doping Association, with head of the Regional Anti-Doping Organisation, Tessa Shaw-Chadderton, being heavily involved in the set-up of programmes to forewarn and to prepare the athletes for the ten days of competition.
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