Kevon Felmine

Al­though Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar la­belled it a "hap­py day" as she opened the $110 mil­lion re­fur­bished Ir­win Park Sport­ing Com­plex in her Siparia con­stituen­cy on Wednes­day, sev­er­al as­pects of the project re­main in­com­plete.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the his­toric fa­cil­i­ty as the Queen's Park of Siparia, say­ing that Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing a vi­brant sports in­dus­try in T&T. The project was start­ed in 2012 by Phoenix Weld­ing and Fab­ri­cat­ed Ltd and was ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in May 2015, but it was de­layed by the ab­sence of a board at the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT).

While she watched lo­cal foot­ball team Siparia Spurs take on Club San­do and Moru­ga in the first fix­tures on the new foot­ball turf, cy­cling can­not take place un­til the end of Sep­tem­ber as steel rods were still pro­trud­ing from the un­cov­ered track while work on the pool and bas­ket­ball courts were yet to be­gin.

She said: "To­day we are very hap­py, for the decades of ne­glect meant that the ground could not sus­tain the lev­el of ac­tiv­i­ties that mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty craved. The pavil­ions be­came di­lap­i­dat­ed, the grounds were not cut and fences were not re­paired. Slow­ly but sure­ly, peo­ple be­gan to stay away from the field and grav­i­tate to more harm­ful or neg­a­tive means of recre­ation.

"This is why the Min­istry of Sports and the Sports Com­pa­ny, the im­ple­men­ta­tion arm of the min­istry, were man­dat­ed to re­vise sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ty at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el by pro­vid­ing up­grades and new in­fra­struc­ture where nec­es­sary to com­mu­ni­ty grounds and parks in every part of T&T."

She said since 2012, SporTT had re­fur­bished 100 recre­ation grounds through­out the coun­try. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day SporTT's ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Adri­an Ray­mond said the cy­cling track would be ready by the end of Sep­tem­ber, as the con­trac­tor still has to ap­ply a resin sur­face.

He said this was a re­quest by the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion as it would al­low them to host in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments. He said the re­fur­bish­ment of the pool and bas­ket­ball fa­cil­i­ties would be done in Phase III of the project.

Project man­ag­er Dex­ter Brown said Phase III will be the con­struc­tion of a mul­ti­pur­pose in­door fa­cil­i­ty which will house a 25m pool and a hard­wood gym­na­si­um for var­i­ous sports such as bas­ket­ball, net­ball, foot­ball, bad­minton and vol­ley­ball.How­ev­er, no funds or date have been giv­en for the start of the project. He said there would be a walk around with SporTT of­fi­cials and the con­trac­tor to tie up loose ends.

Cy­cling track to be named af­ter Njisane

Hail­ing na­tion­al cy­cling sen­sa­tion Njisane Phillip as a son of Siparia, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that the new track would be named af­ter him. She added that Phillip is her hus­band, Dr Gre­go­ry Bisses­sar's nephew. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so an­nounced that the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome in Cou­va and the Na­tion­al Ten­nis Cen­tre in Tacarigua would be opened in the com­ing week.

Sports Min­is­ter Brent San­cho said elite lev­el cy­cling would now re­turn to Siparia with the re­fur­bished track. Pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion Robert Far­ri­er wel­comed the new track and said spe­cial recog­ni­tion of Phillip would help to in­spire young sports­men and women to ex­cel. How­ev­er, he said he could not com­ment on the track as he was not in­vit­ed to the open­ing.

"It is al­ways good to know that fa­cil­i­ties are be­ing named af­ter some of our good per­form­ers in the coun­try. It is good for the younger ones to see this and look to set goals to the lev­els those rid­ers achieved.

"We wel­come all the new fa­cil­i­ties that are be­ing con­struct­ed and it will bring a lot of glo­ry to T&T. We have been mak­ing de­mands for the right fa­cil­i­ties for our rid­ers to train and com­pete for a long time as we are look­ing to spread the sport of cy­cling through­out T&T," Far­ri­er said.

His­toric fa­cil­i­ty

Work at the fa­cil­i­ty ac­tu­al­ly start­ed back in the ear­ly 1980s and it has been the home venue of for­mer na­tion­al cy­clists Clyde Saney. For­mer na­tion­al foot­ball cap­tain Dex­ter Fran­cis de­vel­oped his skills at the grounds and it is where for­mer Olympian Ian "Frin­ty" Mor­ris trained for the 400m track event and played foot­ball. Marathon run­ners Moses Rangel and Paul Voisin, two win­ners of the T&T Marathon in the 1980s and 90s, used to the venue to train, while the net­ball court was where Phillip's aunt, Mar­cia Dim­soy, played be­fore she be­came a mem­ber of 1979 world net­ball team.

Mul­ti­fac­eted sport­ing com­plex

Sports Min­is­ter Brent San­cho said the Ir­win Park Sport­ing Com­plex was now a mul­ti­fac­eted sport fa­cil­i­ty which boast­ed a Fi­fa-stan­dard foot­ball field and would now be­come a pre­mi­um lo­ca­tion for Pro League, Su­per League and Women's Pre­mier League fix­tures.

He said the crick­et field was al­so ICC cer­ti­fied and should be­come a venue for the T&T Crick­et Board's pre­mier crick­et league. He al­so called on en­tre­pre­neurs to make full use of the op­por­tu­ni­ties to mar­ket them­selves at the fa­cil­i­ties as it would al­so help to cre­ate rev­enue to cov­er main­te­nance costs for the venue.

Ameni­ties

�2 333m out­door con­crete cy­cling track

�2 400m ath­let­ics grass track for am­a­teur and recre­ation­al use

�2 In­ter­na­tion­al-stan­dard foot­ball field

�2 In­ter­na­tion­al-stan­dard crick­et field

�2 Two 900-seat pavil­ions for cy­cling and foot­ball/crick­et venues

�2 Car park