Grena­da is hap­py and ex­cit­ed to be host­ing the 51st edi­tion of the CARIF­TA Games be­ing held at the Ki­rani James Ath­let­ics Sta­di­um, St George’s from Fri­day (March 29) to Mon­day (April 1).

The 2024 edi­tion will mark on­ly the third oc­ca­sion that the re­gion’s pre­mier show­case of ju­nior ath­let­ic tal­ent comes to the Isle of Spice, which pre­vi­ous­ly host­ed the 45th edi­tion in 2016 and the 29th edi­tion in 2000. The 2005 games were moved to Ba­co­let, To­ba­go af­ter the dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects of Hur­ri­cane Ivan in 2004 ren­dered Grena­da un­able to ful­fill host­ing oblig­a­tions the fol­low­ing year.

Deputy Chair­man of the Lo­cal Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee and Im­me­di­ate Past Pres­i­dent of the Grena­da Ath­let­ics As­so­ci­a­tion, Aaron Moses paints a pic­ture of a na­tion ec­sta­t­ic about the re­turn of the games to the is­land.

“Well, we’re cer­tain­ly quite ex­cit­ed. As you know, ath­let­ics is a very pop­u­lar sport in Grena­da, fol­lowed by soc­cer, or what we af­fec­tion­ate­ly know as foot­ball. It’s our third time host­ing Carif­ta, we did that in 2000, we were sup­posed to host in 2005, but we had a hur­ri­cane in 2004. It took us a while to re­build a sta­di­um, and we host­ed it in 2016.” Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day at the en­trance to Grena­da’s Mau­rice Mar­shall In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, for­mer­ly known as Point Salines Air­port be­fore the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Ivan, he said, “On both oc­ca­sions, it was a pret­ty suc­cess­ful event, pa­trons were quite hap­py, our Caribbean fra­ter­ni­ty was very com­pli­men­ta­ry of the games and so once again we are ex­treme­ly pleased and hap­py to be host­ing the re­gion.”

When the starter’s pis­tol sounds on Fri­day, over 700 ath­letes from around the re­gion will be­gin the com­pe­ti­tion, each seek­ing glo­ry and a spot on the podi­um. They will do so in front of what is ex­pect­ed to be a par­ti­san crowd at the Ki­rani James Ath­let­ics Sta­di­um.

It is of­fi­cial­ly the best-ever par­tic­i­pa­tion at the games in its his­to­ry from a view­point of sheer num­bers, which Moses at­trib­ut­es to its re­turn to the south­ern Caribbean.

Fol­low­ing Grena­da’s pre­vi­ous host­ing of the event in 2016, the CARIF­TA Games have on­ly been held in the south­ern Caribbean once in four edi­tions, with Willem­stad, Cu­ra­cao cho­sen for the 2017 games. Nas­sau, Ba­hamas won the rights in 2018, George­town, Cay­man Is­lands in 2018, and Kingston Ja­maica in 2019 be­fore a two-year break caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Kingston, Ja­maica host­ed in 2022.

Moses ex­plained, “On this oc­ca­sion, it is the largest ever by virtue of the par­tic­i­pa­tion of ath­letes and of­fi­cials. Gen­er­al­ly, when the event is held in this part of the Caribbean, where most of the is­lands are lo­cat­ed, it is cheap­er be­cause trav­el costs and arrange­ments are a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor that have to be con­sid­ered. When you’re go­ing up north, giv­en the trans­porta­tion net­works, some­times you have to get visas. It be­comes more com­pli­cat­ed and more ex­pen­sive.”

These fac­tors, cou­pled with the fact this year’s CARIF­TA Games form a part of Grena­da’s 50th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions which was of­fi­cial­ly com­mem­o­rat­ed on Feb­ru­ary 7, adds to the an­tic­i­pa­tion, says Moses.

We’re look­ing for­ward to quite par­tic­i­pa­tive games. As you know, our sta­di­um has two main stands on the bleach­ers about halfway. So we are an­tic­i­pat­ing a full house. A lot of Grena­di­ans are now scram­bling for tick­ets, they move late. It’s con­sis­tent with their sort of mood, as you know Grena­da is cel­e­brat­ing 50 years of in­de­pen­dence and so the cel­e­bra­to­ry mood is very high. Peo­ple are par­tic­i­pat­ing. It’s a good year for us, you know so we’re re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to you hav­ing an en­joy­able Grena­di­an ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Mean­while, from a tech­ni­cal stand­point, Moses says the re­cent re-lay­ing of the track at the Ki­rani James Sta­di­um of­fers no threat to Grena­da’s abil­i­ty to host safe, ex­cit­ing, and suc­cess­ful games.

“The main track was com­plet­ed about a month ago and since then we have had four na­tion­al meets, na­tion­al cham­pi­onships, in­ter-col­lege games, pri­ma­ry school games, and the gar­den games. So that has oc­curred. We’re still in the process of fin­ish­ing the warm-up track but hope­ful­ly, that should be com­plet­ed in two days. In ad­di­tion to that, all the equip­ment is on hand. We’re uti­liz­ing the most mod­ern equip­ment avail­able that you will see at all the in­ter­na­tion­al games. So we are pre­pared. We have done all the train­ing, and all the prac­tice runs, up­dat­ing all tech­ni­cal of­fi­cials. On the ground we have both the or­ga­ni­za­tion and tech­ni­cal del­e­gates have ar­rived. All var­i­ous com­mit­tees have been work­ing for the last year in all the var­i­ous ar­eas, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, trans­porta­tion, pro­to­col, med­ical, and dop­ing. So they’re all in place and ready to go.