Team cap­tain Luke Phillip was the hero for Guapo Up­ris­ing Youths as he fired in a hat-trick to in­spire Guapo Up­ris­ing Youths to an en­ter­tain­ing come-from-be­hind 4-3 tri­umph over Gas­par­il­lo Youths ‘Y’ in this year’s fi­nal of the West Penn Is­land­wide Com­mu­ni­ty Youth (Un­der-21) Foot­ball Tour­na­ment at the Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex, Sa­van­nah Road, Diego Mar­tin, on Au­gust 23. The tour­na­ment was host­ed by the West Penn Cen­tre for Sports and Cul­ture in con­junc­tion with RBC Roy­al Bank of T&T.

ST GEORGE’S – In a stun­ning up­set that has sent shock­waves through the tour­na­ment, Saint Lu­cia hand­ed the pre­vi­ous­ly un­beat­en An­tigua and Bar­bu­da their first de­feat of the fifth EC­CB In­ter­na­tion­al Net­ball Se­ries with a com­mand­ing 45-33 vic­to­ry at the Tan­teen Net­ball Court in Grena­da.

CAS­TRIES – In a ma­jor move set to rev­o­lu­tionise the busi­ness of sports in Saint Lu­cia, the World In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WIPO) is part­ner­ing with the gov­ern­ment to host a land­mark con­fer­ence aimed at em­pow­er­ing lo­cal ath­letes, sports fed­er­a­tions, and en­tre­pre­neurs.

Buck­le up, sports fans, as we are once again blessed with a boun­ty of im­por­tant sport­ing events over the next few weeks. Let us start with the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL), which bowled off on Au­gust 14 in Bas­seterre, St Kitts.

Reign­ing World In­door Mas­ters (Over-35) cham­pi­ons Gwen­dolyn Smith and Geral­dine George led the way by cap­tur­ing mul­ti­ple ti­tles at this year’s T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Mas­ters Ath­let­ics (TTA­MA) Track and Field Cham­pi­onships at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, on the week­end (Au­gust 23-24).

For­mer Caribbean cy­cling one kilo­me­tre time tri­al cham­pi­on Tariq Woods rode to vic­to­ry in the men’s Elite 1, 2, 3 and Un­der-23 Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion Road Race Chal­lenge #4 Cri­teri­um “Keep Mov­ing Sun­days” on the Diego Mar­tin High­way, Diego Mar­tin on Sun­day, Au­gust 24.

The Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) of­fi­cial­ly opened its new, elite gym at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre, Or­ange Grove Road, Tacarigua on Mon­day.

Phillip Watts, Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs has pledged his con­tin­ued sup­port to the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion and its na­tion­al teams in their quest for suc­cess.

With so much hap­pen­ing that can be seen as neg­a­tive, even in say­ing that these aren’t easy times and it’s an ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing pe­ri­od, I re­main un­wa­ver­ing in my be­lief that “this too shall pass”.

Cham­pi­on train­er John O’Brien and cham­pi­on jock­ey Dil­lon Khelawan both will be seek­ing to con­tin­ue their win­ning ways when the Ari­ma Race Club bring rac­ing to the ta­ble on Mon­day (Sep­tem­ber 1).

The Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Un­der-16 Girls Hub pro­gramme, Au­gust 15 to Sep­tem­ber 3, in part­ner­ship with the T&T Women’s Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (TTWCA), is ex­pos­ing young girls to the fun­da­men­tals of crick­et as part of a long-term strate­gic plan to de­vel­op the next gen­er­a­tion of high­ly skilled West In­dies women's crick­eters.

GROS ISLET – The Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers se­cured a cru­cial 18-run vic­to­ry over the Saint Lu­cia Kings in a hard-fought Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League en­counter at the Daren Sam­my Crick­et Grounds in St Lu­cia on Sat­ur­day night, a re­sult that dra­mat­i­cal­ly reshuf­fles the ear­ly-sea­son stand­ings.