It was Car­ni­val in Au­gust as the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games be­gan with much fan­fare at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo on Fri­day.

The Games wel­comed ath­letes, fans, and sup­port­ers from 70 coun­tries that will com­pete in sev­en sports- name­ly ath­let­ics, cy­cling, triathlon, beach vol­ley­ball, rug­by, net­ball and swim­ming.

Cy­cling, swim­ming Ath­let­ics and Para-ath­let­ics will take place in Trinidad while Beach Vol­ley­ball, rug­by (sev­ens, triathlon and net­ball (Fast 5) will take place in the sis­ter isle of To­ba­go and will run un­til Au­gust 11.

At the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Mu­cu­rapo venue, a noisy rhythm sec­tion, parad­ing mas­quer­aders and sway­ing moko jumbies had set the tone for what to ex­pect the in­side, where Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­er gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe, and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Nyan Gads­by Dol­ly, among many oth­ers dig­ni­taries had tak­en a cen­tre seat.

How­ev­er, it was the pa­rade of 70 na­tions that made the trek on the track in front of the cov­ered area that cre­at­ed the loud­est cheers. These cheers lat­er turned to a crescen­do when the an­nounce­ment of the T&T team came, as the large con­tin­gent of ath­letes re­spond­ed by danc­ing to the so­ca song of Nya George's 'Trinidad.'

In the stands, wav­ing flags and arms ac­knowl­edged their pres­ence, but it al­so came with em­brac­ing arms to many na­tions nev­er seen or heard of be­fore in the twin-is­land Re­pub­lic, in the area of sports.

Teams such as Rwan­da, Mozam­bique, Namib­ia, Tan­za­nia, Ugan­da, South Africa, Sin­ga­pore, Cyprus, Gibral­tar, Isle of Man, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Is­lands, Malaysia, Kenya, and Malawi among many oth­er coun­tries to will have ath­letes per­form­ing in front of lo­cal fans.

Pres­i­dent of the Com­mon­wealth Games Dame Louise Mar­tin de­scribed the cer­e­mo­ny as one of the best she has ever seen. She said the event will unite the Com­mon­wealth re­gion for this pe­ri­od and asked all to en­joy the com­pe­ti­tion as they give their best.

Fol­low­ing yes­ter­day's open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, ac­tion will be­gin at 9 am this morn­ing with the In­di­vid­ual Time Tri­al us­ing a route around the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba.

The young rid­ers will be re­quired to com­pete on a 10-kilo­me­tre route while the boys will be asked to con­test a 15k dis­tance.

Mean­while, at the UCI World Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Glas­gow, Scot­land, sprint­ers Nicholas Paul and Kwe­si Browne will con­test the fly­ing 200-me­tre sprint, for a chance to qual­i­fy for the match sprint event lat­er.

The lo­cal rid­ers will be us­ing this event to gain much-need­ed points ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris, France next year.