Ephraim Ser­rette, the new­ly ap­point­ed chair­man of the or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee of the T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­GA) for next year's host­ing of the Com­mon­wealth Youths Games (CYG), has stat­ed the bud­get for the event to be host­ed both in Trinidad and To­ba­go will sur­pass $35 mil­lion.

In ad­di­tion to Ser­rette, the vice pres­i­dent of the TTC­GA, the lo­cal com­mit­tee which will al­so com­prise sec­re­tary gen­er­al An­nette Knott, TTC­GA over­see­ing the CGA Re­la­tions, Gabre Je­su Mc Tair, deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (Ag.) of the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (MSCD) while Ka­iron Ser­rette, head of part­ner­ships and al­liances, Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) will both lead the gov­ern­ment's rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and pres­i­dent of the TTC­GA, Di­ane Hen­der­son on the five-mem­ber board.

The sports pro­gramme for the event dubbed "Trin­ba­go 2023" will see sev­en sport­ing dis­ci­plines be­ing fea­tured from Au­gust 4-11, 2023, among ath­letes be­tween the ages of 14 to 18.

The sports will take place in two clus­ters, one in Cou­va, Trinidad and the oth­er in To­ba­go, to bring a di­verse per­spec­tive of the twin is­land coun­try to the na­tions of the Com­mon­wealth, as well as show­case a fes­ti­val of the coun­try’s ac­tiv­i­ties.

The sev­en sports that will fea­ture at the Trin­ba­go 2023 Com­mon­wealth Youth Games are aquat­ics (swim­ming), ath­let­ics, cy­cling (road race, time tri­al, and track), rug­by sev­ens, triathlon and beach vol­ley­ball for both boys and girls, while the Fast5 net­ball will be con­test­ed by girls on­ly.

Com­ment­ing on the pre­sen­ta­tion of the sports pro­gramme, Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent Dame Louise Mar­tin said: “We are de­light­ed to con­firm the Sports Pro­gramme for the 2023 Com­mon­wealth Youth Games, fea­tur­ing much-an­tic­i­pat­ed de­buts in the Youth Games for the dy­nam­ic and in­no­v­a­tive Fast5 net­ball and triathlon. It promis­es to be a thrilling and com­pet­i­tive Games and an ex­cep­tion­al show­cas­ing of Caribbean and Com­mon­wealth sports.

“An in­valu­able spring­board for the stars and lead­ers of to­mor­row, the Games will be a tru­ly spe­cial and in­spir­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for young ath­letes from across the Com­mon­wealth.”

TTC­GA pres­i­dent Hen­der­son said: “T&T were award­ed the right to stage the sev­enth edi­tion of the Games by the Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion at its Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in Birm­ing­ham. The de­ci­sion came af­ter T&T was ini­tial­ly award­ed the 2021 Com­mon­wealth Youth Games in June 2019, but that event was post­poned due to the im­pact of the pan­dem­ic on the in­ter­na­tion­al sports cal­en­dar. We look for­ward to great things in the near fu­ture!”

Com­ment­ing on his ap­point­ment, Ser­rette not­ed that host­ing the event is not go­ing to be an easy task, but one that he is con­fi­dent that T&T will pull off very suc­cess­ful­ly.

"It's go­ing to be sev­en dif­fer­ent sport­ing dis­ci­plines and we now have less than a year for us to make it hap­pen. Some of the venues would be close to be­ing ready as we were due to have the event in 2021, but be­cause of the pan­dem­ic it was post­poned, so in some cas­es, it will be for us just to re­vis­it our plans for these venues and most def­i­nite­ly re­think the over­all bud­get," said Ser­rette.

"The gov­ern­ment has al­ready com­mit­ted a fi­nan­cial sup­port of $35 mil­lion but we al­ready know that the host­ing of the event will now cost more than that fig­ure and we will be go­ing af­ter the sup­port of the cor­po­rate sec­tor of T&T to come on board with us.

"This is go­ing to be a re­al­ly big event for us and I think that with the con­tin­ued sup­port of the sit­ting gen­er­al sec­re­tary, and the im­me­di­ate past pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee Bri­an Lewis, we are in a very good place for the event to be a suc­cess."