The Car­ni­val King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion is back where it be­longs. This is the sen­ti­ment of two-time Car­ni­val King Wade Madray as he weighed in on the fi­nals of the com­pe­ti­tion be­ing re­turned to Di­manche Gras.

“It’s ex­act­ly what it was sup­posed to be. It’s tra­di­tion. It’s the role of the Mer­ry Monarch. The Mer­ry Monarch rings in Car­ni­val,” he said.

Madray be­lieves the com­pe­ti­tion “should nev­er have been tak­en out of Di­manche Gras show”.

He crit­i­cised the Di­manche Gras show since the King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion was moved as be­ing “just a ca­lyp­so show” which he said hurt the night’s at­ten­dance.

Madray was crowned Car­ni­val King in 2011 and 2014.

Rox­anne Oma­lo, Car­ni­val Queen 2018 al­so told Guardian Me­dia she be­lieves the re­turn was “a good thing”.

The pre­vi­ous two in­stal­ments of the an­nu­al com­pe­ti­tion were re­moved from the night’s line­up and placed in their own show due to con­cerns over the length of the De­manche Gras pro­ceed­ings with oth­er com­pe­ti­tions such as the Ca­lyp­so Monarch ex­plained T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) pres­i­dent Ros­alind Gabriel in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

She said this was a trend they in­tend­ed to keep in this year’s it­er­a­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion with it oc­cur­ring the Fri­day be­fore car­ni­val, how­ev­er, they were asked to change the date to fa­cil­i­tate the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch which was card­ed for the same night.

“I then asked if we could have the King and Queen on De­manche Gras and it was read­i­ly ac­cept­ed,” she ex­plained.

“We (the TTC­BA) are very hap­py the Kings and Queens is back on De­manche Gras...the Kings and Queens are very hap­py to be back on Di­manche Gras. I can tell you with all my years of car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence, the Kings and Queens wish was al­ways to be in Di­manche Gras- al­ways,” she con­tin­ued.

Asked if they in­tend­ed to keep the move as a per­ma­nent re­turn, Gabriel said: “Let’s see how this year goes be­fore we talk about next year”.

She does not be­lieve the shift­ing dates of re­cent years would hurt the com­pe­ti­tion’s brand in any way.

The fi­nal of the Ju­nior King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion would take place on Car­ni­val Thurs­day at Adam Smith Square.