Nicholas Clarke

The Min­istry of Sport will be award­ing a con­tract this week for the con­struc­tion of a new cy­cling velo­drome to be lo­cat­ed op­po­site the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va. The fa­cil­i­ty, es­ti­mat­ed to cost be­tween $145-$200 mil­lion, will fea­ture a wood­en in­door 250m track as well as a con­crete out­door 250m track, and is sched­uled to be com­plet­ed with­in the next 18 months. This was re­vealed by Min­is­ter of Sport Anil Roberts dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny held to cel­e­brate the paving of the 'golf course cir­cuit' at Samaan Park Ch­aguara­mas on Thurs­day. Roberts said the mul­ti-pur­pose fa­cil­i­ty would be fit to stage World Cham­pi­onships, World Cups and Grands Prix and would in­clude an in­door seat­ing ca­pac­i­ty of 2000, state of the art elec­tron­ic tim­ing, con­fer­ence rooms, of­fices, a gym and a sports cen­tre.

He called on mem­bers of the cy­cling com­mu­ni­ty to of­fer their sug­ges­tions and in­put, which would be con­sid­ered be­fore the de­sign was fi­nalised. "The next three months will be crit­i­cal so any­body and every­body who has an opin­ion please give it to us now, be­cause once the fi­nal de­sign is there and they start to dig, we're not chang­ing any­thing be­cause that will cause over­runs. Any­body who knows about cy­cling, do a brief and send it in." The project will be one of three ma­jor sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties the Min­istry will be con­struct­ing over the next two years tal­ly­ing a com­bined price tag of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $735 mil­lion. The oth­er two are a Ten­nis Cen­tre in Tacarigua and an Aquat­ics Cen­tre in Mount Hope. "It's ex­cit­ing and good that we've reached so close be­cause these things have been promised for so long. The swim­ming pool was promised since 1966 while the cy­cling velo­drome has been promised for 30 or 40 years."

He added that the gov­ern­ment would be spend­ing al­most $2.5 bil­lion on sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties across the coun­try in the next three years, in­clud­ing a 50m pool in Ch­aguara­mas and 33 25m pools in dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties. The repaving of the golf course cir­cuit, which has been a train­ing ground for cy­clists since the 1970s, will be the first of sev­er­al up­com­ing sport­ing ini­tia­tives in the Ch­aguara­mas area. Roberts said it was im­por­tant for cy­clists to have ac­cess to a safe area on which to train. "Our T&T dri­vers are the worst in the world, I can tell you that. We have sto­ries of peo­ple be­ing knocked down and this fa­cil­i­ty will en­sure that we can ride safe­ly and se­cure­ly to grow the sport."