On No­vem­ber 8, some 160 ath­letes gath­ered on Mara­cas Beach to com­pete in the Spe­cial Olympics T&T’s (SOTT’s) 2025 Beach Games. Join­ing the ath­letes were 150 vol­un­teers, 30 coach­es, spec­ta­tors, cor­po­rate part­ners, and gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The Beach Games com­prised five ac­tiv­i­ties: the open wa­ter swim, uni­fied beach vol­ley­ball, boc­ce, aquathlon, and uni­fied beach soc­cer.

​The day start­ed with the Open Wa­ter Swim, fol­lowed by a for­mal open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, which was presided over by Phillip Watts, Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs. Min­is­ter Watts en­cour­aged all the ath­letes to “com­pete with pride, lift one an­oth­er up, and let your ex­am­ple re­mind us that in­clu­sion is not sim­ply a goal, it is the very essence of who we are as a peo­ple.”

​The Min­is­ter al­so de­scribed how his Min­istry sup­port­ed SOTT in the lead-up to the games: “As Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, I as­sure you to­day that all ath­letes in Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­gard­less of dis­ci­pline or abil­i­ty, will have ac­cess to our Elite Gyms free of charge. This is part of our com­mit­ment to mak­ing sport eq­ui­table, in­clu­sive, and em­pow­er­ing for all.

​“Through the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, we con­tin­ue to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties, strength­en fa­cil­i­ties, sup­port coach ed­u­ca­tion, and ex­pand school and com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes to en­sure that per­sons of all abil­i­ties can train, per­form, and achieve their fullest po­ten­tial,” Min­is­ter Watts added in clos­ing.

Ma­jor David Ben­jamin, chair­man of the SOTT Board of Di­rec­tors, ex­pressed his grat­i­tude for the Min­is­ter’s sup­port and that of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s cor­po­rate part­ners, the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion and Blue Wa­ter. Ma­jor Ben­jamin hint­ed that his team hopes to soon host the Beach Games in the sis­ter isle, To­ba­go.

​The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny was brought to a close with the read­ing of the oaths and the pass­ing of the cer­e­mo­ni­al Torch of Hope. An­oth­er note­wor­thy high­light of the Beach Games was the uni­fied teams which com­pet­ed in vol­ley­ball and soc­cer. Each uni­fied team was made up of ath­letes with and with­out in­tel­lec­tu­al abil­i­ties. This team mod­el is used as a means of giv­ing the ath­letes an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn more about each oth­er, in ad­di­tion to fur­ther­ing the SOTT’s agen­da of in­clu­siv­i­ty and di­ver­si­ty.

​Com­pet­ing in this year’s SOTT Beach Games were teams from: In­de­pen­dent Ath­letes, La­dy Ho­choy Home Co­corite, La­dy Ho­choy Gas­par­il­lo, La­dy Ho­choy School Pe­nal, La­dy Ho­choy Vo­ca­tion­al Cen­tre, Man­taray Swimm Club, Memisa Cen­tre, Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties, and Palmeras Learn­ing Cen­tre.

SOTT Beach Games re­sults

Open Wa­ter Swim, Di­vi­sion 1: 1,500m: 1 Don­a­van Garib, 18:37.00, 2 Jaleel Pierre, 25:18.00, 3 Javon Jer­ry-Lovell, 29:04.55

Open Wa­ter Swim, Di­vi­sion 2, De­vel­op­men­tal: 350m: 1 Kel­lon Di­az, 13:27.58, 2 José Burgess, 13:29.02, 3 Ter­rell Cassie, 21:37.46

Aquathlon (Run & Swim), Di­vi­sion 1: 1 Don­a­van Garib, 2 Jaleel Pierre, 3 Javon Jer­ry-Lovell

Aquathlon (Run & Swim), Di­vi­sion 2, De­vel­op­men­tal: 1 Kel­lon Di­az, 13:27.58, 2 José Burgess, 13:29.02, 3 Mick­el Williams

Boc­ce (Di­vi­sion 1): Fe­male: 1 La­dy Ho­choy Pe­nal, 2 In­de­pen­dents (1), 3 La­dy Ho­choy Co­corite

Boc­ce (Di­vi­sion 2): Male: 1 In­de­pen­dents (2), 2 La­dy Ho­choy Pe­nal, 3 Memisa

Boc­ce (Di­vi­sion 3): Mixed (1): 1 La­dy Ho­choy South 4, 2 La­dy Ho­choy South 3, 3 Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties

Boc­ce (Di­vi­sion 4): Mixed (2): 1 Mixed (Ind/LHS), 2 Memisa, 3 La­dy Ho­choy South 2

Uni­fied Beach Soc­cer (Di­vi­sion 1): 1 Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (A), 2 La­dy Ho­choy School Pe­nal, 3 Memisa Cen­tre

Uni­fied Beach Soc­cer (Di­vi­sion 2): 1 Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (B), 2 Palmeras, 3 La­dy Ho­choy Vo­ca­tion­al Cen­tre

Uni­fied Beach Vol­ley­ball: 1 Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (A), 2 La­dy Ho­choy Gas­par­il­lo (B), 3 La­dy Ho­choy Gas­par­il­lo (A)