Derek Achong

Vet­er­an mas­quer­ad­er Roland St George and 21-year-old rook­ie Stephanie Kan­hai walked away from the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah as Car­ni­val King and Queen on Fri­day night.How­ev­er, it was not easy, as both had to over­come po­ten­tial­ly de­bil­i­tat­ing is­sues on the road to be­ing crowned this year's mas mon­archs.

St George's pre­sen­ta­tion Aht­wa­je, a huge ar­moured fight­ing cock with a ser­pent near its talons, was a favourite in the pre­lim­i­nary stage, with the 69-year-old thrilling the crowd and judges with his seam­less move­ments which made it ap­pear that the two crea­tures were spar­ring with­out touch­ing each oth­er.

But St George has been plagued by is­sues with the me­chan­i­cal el­e­ments of his cos­tume and Fri­day was no dif­fer­ent, as he was forced to cut short his per­for­mance when one of the im­pres­sive bird's legs broke off.Speak­ing short­ly af­ter the awards cer­e­mo­ny, St George, who last won the com­pe­ti­tion in 2012, ex­plained that his de­ci­sion to ex­it the stage ear­ly was a tac­tic to avoid the judges notic­ing the is­sue which threat­ened to spoil his oth­er­wise im­pres­sive per­for­mance.

St George was able to beat Ted Eu­stace's Sara­man­ga-D Wolf Bat by four points. Like George, Eu­stace was blight­ed in the se­mi-fi­nal stage when his cos­tume top­pled on its side–forc­ing him to make a quick re­cov­ery to qual­i­fy for the fi­nals. Al­though there was no re­peat of Tues­day night's is­sue, which was caused by strong winds, Eu­stace was un­able to dis­play the en­er­gy re­quired by the judges as he laboured to ma­noeu­vre his cos­tume across the stage.

While her cos­tume was not the biggest or most elab­o­rate, Kan­hai–the on­ly com­peti­tor to utilise stilts–cap­tured the at­ten­tion of the judges with her flu­id and fear­less dance moves.

Kan­hai's cel­e­bra­tions were al­most over­shad­owed by an in­jury, as she fell and in­jured her leg as she was walk­ing back­stage af­ter per­form­ing. Hours lat­er, Kan­hai, who had en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion on­ly three times in the past, limped on stage to claim her crown. She was able to hold off her near­est com­peti­tor, Rox­anne Oma­lo, whose grandiose por­tray­al The Phan­tom Queen–a war­rior skele­ton rid­ing a men­ac­ing bat­tle crow–en­tered the tour­na­ment as a strong con­tender.

A vis­i­bly shocked Kan­hai ad­mit­ted that she did not view her­self as a fore­run­ner at the be­gin­ning of the night. "It feels great. My in­ten­tion was just to come and have fun and get the ex­pe­ri­ence," Kan­hai said.Nei­ther monarch was in a po­si­tion to say what they would do with their $250,000 cash re­ward.

But when asked for his opin­ion on the small­er-scale cos­tumes and few­er com­pe­ti­tiors not­ed in this year's com­pe­ti­tion, St George point­ed to the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Band As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA)'s renu­mer­a­tion pack­ages. "The NC­BA Pres­i­dent (David Lopez) would not agree with me, but I think the lack of in­cen­tives is what is mak­ing the cos­tumes small­er and we are get­ting a kind of re­cy­cle sys­tem tak­ing place. How­ev­er, clear­ly, we have not run out of ideas," St George said.

Fri­day's com­pe­ti­tion saw last year's mon­archs Wade Madray and Pe­o­la Marchan be­ing con­vinc­ing­ly de­throned and left pon­der­ing their plans for next year. They placed ninth and fifth, re­spec­tive­ly, from a short­list of ten com­peti­tors in each cat­e­go­ry.The au­di­ence at the Sa­van­nah was no­tice­ably small­er than in the pre­lim­i­nary stages, which has be­come the norm since the com­pe­ti­tion was moved from its tra­di­tion­al home, that is, the Di­manche Gras show on Car­ni­val Sun­day night.

Nonethe­less, those present were still en­ter­tained by per­for­mances from sev­er­al so­ca artists and were treat­ed to a well-or­gan­ised dis­play of car­ni­val de­sign, crafts­man­ship and the­atrics.

Re­sults

Car­ni­val King

1. Aht­wa­je - Roland St George -4 33

2. Sara­man­ga-D Wolf Bat - Ted Eu­stace � 429

3. Death-Des­o­la­tion De­spair-Keep­er of Souls - Fareid Car­val­ho - 413

4. Mr Slick - Patrick Roberts Jr - 403

5. Pan in D Mas- Clyde Bas­combe � 402

6. Zatog-The In­vin­ci­ble - Fer­nan­do Marchan � 398

7. Wild Fire � Mar­lon Ram­per­sad � 388

8. An­drus War­rior King and his Pro­tec­tor � Ray­mond Mark � 388

9. I Or­gi Tou Posi­dona (The Wrath of Posi­don) - Wade Madray - 384

10. The Em­per­or � Ravi Lakhan � 361

Car­ni­val Queens

1. The Sweet Wa­ters of Africa � Stephanie Kan­hai � 411

2. The Phan­tom Queen � Rox­anne Oma­lo � 396

3. An­drom­e­da Mys­ti­cal Queen � Jonell Dick � 393

4. Avi-Queen of the African Vil­lage � Al­en­dra Bai­ley � 390

5. Char­lotte's Cameo � Pe­o­la Marchan � 388

6. Ocean Waves � Glo­ria Dalls­ingh- 386

7. Beau­ty and Free­dom - Kay Ma­son- 381

8. Jew­els of At­lantis � Sav­it­ri Ho­lassie � 380

9. The Pas­sion of Valen­tine � Char­maine Enile - 378

10. Mas­quer­ade-The Gath­er­ing � Tra­cell Fred­er­ick

Lue Sue wins fourth ju­nior Queen crown...Jus­tice Holdip's son takes ju­nior King ti­tle

The en­er­gy of youth up­staged the poise of ex­pe­ri­ence in this year's Ju­nior Car­ni­val Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion.While the high­light of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA)'s Big Fri­day event at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah was un­doubt­ed­ly the se­nior com­pe­ti­tion, the 20 mas­quer­aders vy­ing for the ju­nior crown clear­ly out­shone the much more sea­soned con­tenders with their elec­tri­fy­ing dance moves and colour­ful por­tray­als.

By the end of the night, last year's queen Cyan Lue Sue, of ac­claimed mas de­sign­er Ros­alind Gabriel's band, man­aged to re­tain her crown and earn her­self a fourth since she start­ed com­pet­ing.Her por­tray­al Scar­let Macaw-Trea­sure of Nar­i­va won the ap­plause of the au­di­ence as she mas­ter­ful­ly flut­tered her colour­ful trop­i­cal bird across the stage.Ex­ud­ing the au­ra of a vet­er­an cham­pi­on, a smil­ing Lue Sue said she knew she was a strong con­tender since the start of the com­pe­ti­tion.

"It feels great," Lue Sue said.Yan­nick Holdip won the Kings com­pe­ti­tion with his por­tray­al When You Say Africa...I Say Sha­ka–an elab­o­rate trib­al war­rior-in­spired cos­tume cov­ered in black and white feath­ers. The cos­tume, eas­i­ly the biggest in the com­pe­ti­tion, ap­peared heavy as, like all ju­nior en­trants, it did not em­ploy the use of wheels. How­ev­er, Holdip was able to tame it as he jumped and pranced across the stage.

In a brief in­ter­view at the end of the show, a con­fi­dent Holdip, a Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent, said he gained the com­pet­i­tive edge by think­ing pos­i­tive­ly and hav­ing a win­ning spir­it"I be­lieve I por­trayed the cos­tume in the way it should be por­trayed and I did every­thing I could do to win it," said Holdip, who won his first ti­tle since be­gin­ning to com­pete in 2009.Holdip is the son of High Court Judge Mal­colm Holdip, who was present to con­grat­u­late his son.

As well as a cash prize, both com­peti­tors re­ceived two air­line tick­ets to any des­ti­na­tion to which NC­BA's spon­sor Jet­Blue flies.

Re­sults

Ju­nior Car­ni­val Kings

1. When You Say Africa...I Say Sha­ka - Yan­nick Holdip - 436

2. Phoenix � Ryan Sook­nanan � 413

3. King of Jesters � Jardel Ar­guillera � 392

4. The Proud Pea­cock � Bradley Ramb­horose � 390

5. God of The Hunt � Den­zil Forde � 389

6. Afrikana �Trib­al Art � Isa­iah Fras­er � 387

7. Nashashuk Ptaysan­wee-Thun­der­ing Buf­fa­lo � Kee­gan Far­rell

8. Pay­ata­mu � Fan­cy Bus­tle Dancer � Ja­heim Joseph

9. I Re­mem­ber the Chi­nese in Mas � Za­yne Cas­tana­da

10. Alive and Well � Joshua Bar­row

Ju­nior Car­ni­val Queens

1. Scar­let Macaw�Trea­sure of Nar­i­va � Cyan Lue Sue � 436

2. A Brazil­ian Show­case � Na­talia D'Abreau - 410

3. Of the Gold­en Bird �Nikki­ta Kat­wa­roo � 406

4. Mum­taz Ma­hal � Vaugh­ne­cia Mieres � 398

5. When I say Na­tion­al Award...You Say Hum­ming­bird Gold � Mia James � 397

6. Sum­intra-The Bol­ly­wood Dream­er � Ian­na Monique Roach � 388

7. But­ter­fly Fan­ta­sy � Mcken­zie Pen­co � 384

8. Chovio­hoya �Young Deer � Rais­sa Far­rel � 380

9. Tian Shang Daugh­ter of the Jade Em­per­or � Tis­hana Roach � 377

10. Cos­mic Au­ra The En­er­gy of the Plan­ets � Ivana Mo­hammed - 370