In front of one of the largest crowds in the his­to­ry of the Mi­lo Games, in­au­gur­al win­ners from 1987, Di­a­mond Vale Gov­ern­ment School, showed their new prin­ci­pal David Weekes that they have con­tin­ued the lega­cy of the school's first prin­ci­pal Yvonne Pin­der.

The peren­ni­al West "B" cham­pi­on was awe­some once again on Tues­day, when the 29th edi­tion of the Mi­lo Games was staged at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Port-of-Spain, with the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion An­tho­ny Gar­cia, Ju­nior Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Lovell Fran­cis and Min­is­ter of Sport Dar­ryl Smith.

Di­a­mond Vale Gov­ern­ment showed it con­tin­ues to ex­cel, sweep­ing both the Boys and Girls cat­e­gories, through stel­lar per­for­mances from Jene­ice Bur­ton, Ofili Quow, Tyrell Springer, Isa­iah Gemon and Abi­gail Bur­ton. Last year they start­ed off in style when they were ad­judged win­ners of the March Past, but this year was dif­fer­ent as Pat­na Riv­er Es­tate Gov­ern­ment out-marched them in the ab­sence of stal­wart teacher Glen­da Miller. They amassed a to­tal of 76 points to fin­ish in sixth po­si­tion.

In West A, Co­corite Gov­ern­ment gave prin­ci­pal Cog­land Grif­fith some­thing to smile about when they won the judges nod. The Co­corite School just got the bet­ter of Care­nage Girls' Gov­ern­ment with Mar­aval RC in third.

Mar­aval RC had sim­i­lar suc­cess, sweep­ing the West "A" Zone girl's ti­tle while in the process halt­ing the im­pres­sive run of for­mer cham­pi­on Care­nage Girls Gov­ern­ment. Mar­aval's Shani­qua Bas­combe proved a class act, win­ning the 100, 200 and 400 me­tres, re­spec­tive­ly, with the min­i­mum of fuss.

The 15-time cham­pi­on Care­nage suf­fered just its third de­feat to the Mar­aval in­sti­tu­tion in 19 years. But, Mar­aval RC was in shock as the "Gi­ant Killers" Dun­ross Prepara­to­ry School, which was the cham­pi­on of the West Zone and Port-of-Spain and En­vi­rons in Foot­ball, added an­oth­er lau­rel to their bulging bags of suc­cess­es, when win­ning the West "A" Boys Cham­pi­onship ti­tle for the first time. Dun­ross could not hide their ob­vi­ous de­light as its boys de­throned de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Mar­aval RC tal­ly­ing 124 points.

Di­a­mond Vale, which de­fend­ed its boy's ti­tle, has pre­vi­ous­ly won the Cham­pi­onship 14 times. Its girl's team, mean­while, have won the cham­pi­onship on 16 oc­ca­sions. The out­stand­ing per­form­ers in West A in­clud­ed Mar­aval RC's Shani­qua Bas­combe, Ja­cob St Hillaire, who were vic­trix and vic­tor lu­do­rum in the Un­der-15 Girls and U-13 boys, re­spec­tive­ly.

There were su­perb per­for­mances from Dun­ross' stars Dy­lan Wood­fruffe, Sophia Woodruffe and Dean Mo­hammed.

There were al­so note­wor­thy per­for­mances from Diego Mar­tin Gov­ern­ment's Ka­reem Sanchez, Reneisha McEach­nie along with Sul­tan Mar­shal of Pat­na Riv­er Es­tate Gov­ern­ment. Shakanah George of Pe­tit Val­ley Girls' RC was out­stand­ing while Jo­vani Hay­wood shined for La Puer­ta Gov­ern­ment.

Chair­man of the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (Sportt) Michael Phillip was al­so on hand to give out prizes.

Min­is­ter Gar­cia laud­ed Mi­lo for their in­volve­ment and ap­plaud­ed them for the as­sis­tance giv­en to sport and ed­u­ca­tion. He com­mend­ed the pi­o­neers of the Mi­lo Games and said that the gala open­ing cer­e­mo­ny and march past were things worth savour­ing.

Ho­n­our Roll

March Past: West A: 1 Co­corite Gov­ern­ment–268; 2 Care­nage Girls' Gov­ern­ment - 264; 3 Mar­aval RC–258

West B: 1 Pat­na Riv­er Es­tate Govt–264; 2 Four Roads Govt–260; 3 Crys­tal Stream Govt–249

Vic­trix Lu­do­rum: West A:

U-9: Shani­qua Lawrence

(Care­nage Girls Govt)

U-11: Sophia Woodruffe (Dun­ross)

U-13: Ka­di Ann Pierre (Paramin RC) and Chel­si Muk­er­ji

(In­ter­na­tion­al School)

U-15: Shani­qua Bas­combe

(Mar­aval RC)

Vic­tor Lu­do­rum: West A:

U-9: Clin­ton Lewis

(Point Cumana Gov't)

U-11: Dy­lan Woodruffe (Dun­ross)

U-13: Ja­cob St Hillaire (Mar­aval)

U-15: Dean Mo­hammed (Dun­ross)

Vic­tor Lu­do­rum: West B:

U-9: Ofili Quow (Di­a­mond Vale Govt) and Savion Adams

(Crys­tal Stream Govt)

U-11: Ka­reem Sanchez

(Diego Mar­tin Govt)

U-13: Jo­vani Hay­wood

(La Puer­ta Govt)

U-15: Sul­tan Mar­shall

(Pat­na Riv­er Es­tate Govt)

Vic­trix Lu­do­rum: West B:

U-9: Jene­ice Bur­ton

(Di­a­mond Vale Govt)

U-11: Abi­gail Bur­ton

(Di­a­mond Vale Govt)

U-13: Reneisha McEach­nie

(Diego Mar­tin Govt)

U-15: Shankanah George

(Pe­tit Val­ley Girls RC)