ST GEORGE’S – For the sec­ond time in the space of three years, the Spice Isle of Grena­da is set to host the 2026 Carif­ta Games.

The news was an­nounced by Grena­da’s Min­is­ter of Youth, Sports, and Cul­ture, Del­ma Thomas on Thurs­day.

How­ev­er, Grena­da is await­ing gov­ern­ment’s ap­proval to host the pres­ti­gious event, which is sched­uled to take place from April 4 to 6 at the Ki­rani James Ath­let­ic Sta­di­um.

It would be the fourth oc­ca­sion the Games would be held in Grena­da, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been held there in 2000, 2016 and 2024.

In a so­cial me­dia post, Thomas said it was an ho­n­our to be host­ing the Games once again.

“I am pleased to of­fi­cial­ly an­nounce that Grena­da will host the Carif­ta Games in 2026, bring­ing the re­gion’s pre­mier ath­let­ics cham­pi­onship back to our shores al­most back-to-back, fol­low­ing our suc­cess­ful host­ing in 2024.

“This is a proud mo­ment for our na­tion as we once again take cen­tre stage in show­cas­ing the Caribbean’s best, young, ath­let­ic tal­ent,” Thomas said.

“Host­ing Carif­ta 2026 reaf­firms Grena­da’s com­mit­ment to youth de­vel­op­ment, sports ex­cel­lence and the re­gion­al uni­ty.

“The gov­ern­ment of Grena­da through the Min­istry of Youth and Sports will work close­ly with the GAA and all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to en­sure the event is de­liv­ered at the high­est stan­dard,” she fur­ther added.

Grena­da was favoured to host the Games af­ter Guyana an­nounced they no longer had an in­ter­est in host­ing the three-day event.

CMC