Resh­ma Ra­goonath

The 2010 edi­tion of South­ern Games has been hailed a suc­cess by or­gan­is­ers who record­ed an in­crease in spec­ta­tor at­ten­dance at Guaracara Park over the week­end. Chair­man of the games, for­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or Ian Ather­ly said the com­mit­tee had "seen sig­nif­i­cant growth and the com­pe­ti­tion was ex­cit­ing," adding that the South­ern Games were here to stay. The for­mer na­tion­al cy­clist said the qual­i­ty of ath­letes com­pet­ing for top ho­n­ours in the games was fur­ther tes­ta­ment to its suc­cess. "I be­lieve if you have cham­pi­ons you will al­ways have bet­ter games. Cham­pi­ons like Je­hue (Gor­don) and Njisane (Phillips) re­al­ly lift­ed the ex­pec­ta­tion of the games. The Mara­bel­la peo­ple and en­vi­rons look for­ward to it be­ing in­sti­tu­tion­alised," he said.

While he lament­ed that some of the spon­sor­ship pay­ments were still in the process of be­ing col­lect­ed, Ather­ly said the games' main spon­sor Petrotrin was "quite hap­py" with the way the games were han­dled. The crowd turn-out on Sat­ur­day, he said, was bet­ter than be­fore while Sun­day's events were al­so well at­tend­ed. Ather­ly, how­ev­er, main­tained that even if the crowds did con­tin­ue to grow, Guaracara Park will re­main the venue for South­ern Games. "We do not in­tend to move the games. South­ern Games and Guaracara Park go hand in hand, there will be no change in venue. It will not be the games with­out Guaracara," the Games Chair­man said. The games may have end­ed on Sun­day evening but, many lo­cal ath­letes con­tin­ue to bask in the glow of their week­end con­quests.

Among the lo­cal stars tak­ing top spots on the win­ner's podi­um were sprint­er Ke­ston Bled­man, who copped a dou­ble win over the week­end, and 18-year-old First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion Youth of the Year Je­hue Gor­don. Gor­don al­so took home two gold medals, de­feat­ing chal­lengers such as Amer­i­cans Rob Nowak and Jerome Davis and Ja­maica's Xavier Brown. Na­tion­al cy­clist Njisane Phillip made a sur­prise en­try in­to the games last minute on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon fresh off his re­turn to T&T from Switzer­land. He in­stant­ly made his pres­ence felt as he won the 500m Cy­cle In­ter­na­tion­al. The San Fer­nan­do born cy­clist took top ho­n­ours in 39:42. Lars Niel­son of Den­mark copped sil­ver and Amer­i­can Er­ic Bar­l­evav took home bronze. The in­ter­na­tion­al rid­ers, how­ev­er, were not to be out done as Den­mark's Mads Bugge An­der­sen took gold in the 8000m Cy­cle In­ter­na­tion­al. He was fol­lowed by Adam Dug­gle­bry in sec­ond place and Michael Lar­son in third.

While these na­tion­al stars made their pres­ence known, the fu­ture ath­letes al­so es­tab­lished their places in the games as forces with which to be reck­oned. One such young­ster was Fran­cis Louis of To­co who took home gold in the boys' un­der 15 100m in a time of 12.00. He was fol­lowed by Jamell Da­con of ZC Ath­let­ics in 12.31 while Joshua Layne took third spot in 12.56. Young Re­yare Thomas of Neon Track­ers ran off with gold in the women's 100m in­vi­ta­tion­al in a time of 11.88. Amer­i­can Tian­na Madi­son came in sec­ond in 11.94 and Jade Bai­ley of Bar­ba­dos took bronze in 12.05. Sparkle McK­night, al­so of Neon Track­ers, took home gold for her club in the 400m, win­ning in a time of 55.51. Her team­mate Janeil Bellille took sil­ver in 56.99 and Chel­si Camp­bell took third place in 57.04. Ather­ly said sports lovers can look for­ward to an even bet­ter pre­sen­ta­tion of South­ern Games next year.