Re­pair works at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo in prepa­ra­tion for this coun­try’s coun­try host­ing of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games (CYG) to be held from Au­gust 4 to 11 is set to be­gin fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of the 2023 car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions on Feb­ru­ary 21, 2023.

This was stat­ed in a Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment press re­lease to the me­dia yes­ter­day.

The re­lease stat­ed: The Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T, and the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of T&T met once again to fur­ther de­vel­op plans for host­ing both sports ac­tiv­i­ties and cul­tur­al events at the sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties un­der the Min­istry’s re­mit as ath­letes, na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies, and mem­bers of the cul­tur­al fra­ter­ni­ty con­tin­ue to be ac­com­mo­dat­ed at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and Jean Pierre Com­plex un­til the end of Car­ni­val 2023.

The re­lease added: Con­struc­tion works are card­ed to take place at many sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties across the na­tion.

While works are in progress at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, the pro­cure­ment process is well on the way for the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um (Cou­va), and the scope of works is be­ing con­firmed for the Man­nie Ramjohn (Mara­bel­la) and Lar­ry Gomes (Mal­abar) sta­dia, and Skin­ner Park is sched­uled to be com­plet­ed and de­liv­ered be­fore the end of Jan­u­ary.

Dur­ing this quar­ter of the fis­cal year, the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um will be giv­en pri­or­i­ty since the ath­let­ics com­po­nent of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games (CYG) 2023 will be held at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um lat­er this year.

Ac­cord­ing to the press re­lease: With re­fur­bish­ment works sched­uled to be­gin at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, the MSCD, SporTT, and Ude­coTT con­tin­ue to meet with stake­hold­ers to fi­nalise plans for host­ing both sports and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties un­til con­struc­tion works in­ten­si­fy at the end of Feb­ru­ary.

Health, safe­ty, and se­cu­ri­ty re­main the ut­most pri­or­i­ty to pro­tect all users of the fa­cil­i­ties, and stake­hold­ers must agree to com­ply with all health and safe­ty re­quire­ments and pro­to­cols, which may re­sult in in­creased costs and lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges for some or­gan­is­ers.

A meet­ing will be held with sports and cul­tur­al stake­hold­ers on Jan­u­ary 17, to fur­ther fi­nalise plans and dis­cuss health, safe­ty, and se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols for the util­i­sa­tion of the sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties where both sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and cul­tur­al events are fa­cil­i­tat­ed and ac­com­mo­dat­ed un­til the end of Car­ni­val 2023.

There­after, no ac­tiv­i­ties and events would be ac­com­mo­dat­ed at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um to fa­cil­i­tate con­struc­tion works that must be com­plet­ed in time for host­ing the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games 2023.

The Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing sports and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties and re­mains ded­i­cat­ed to the de­vel­op­ment of these dis­ci­plines in the pur­suit of na­tion­al growth.

Last Sep­tem­ber, the chair­man of the or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee Ephraim Ser­rette not­ed that 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 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.

For the CYG 2023, three sport­ing dis­ci­plines will be host­ed in Trinidad and four sport­ing dis­ci­plines in To­ba­go.

Ath­let­ics, Swim­ming and Cy­cling are sched­uled to take place in Trinidad, while Rug­by, Net­ball, Beach Vol­ley­ball, and Triathlon events are sched­uled to take place in To­ba­go, with net­ball be­ing the lone sin­gle-gen­der event for girls.

In Trinidad, the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre, and the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome, both sit­u­at­ed in Bal­main, Cou­va, will be used for swim­ming, and cy­cling re­spec­tive­ly, while track and field have been shift­ed from the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go to the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Trinidad.

Ac­cord­ing to chair­man of the or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee Ephraim Ser­rette, the switch of venues for ath­let­ics was due main­ly to the Mu­cu­rapo hav­ing a greater ca­pac­i­ty and is eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to more peo­ple giv­en the lo­ca­tion in the cap­i­tal.

Over in To­ba­go, at Pi­geon Point Beach, the sport of beach vol­ley­ball is card­ed to be con­test­ed, while the triathlon events will be held in Buc­coo. It is not con­firmed which venues will be used for rug­by and net­ball.

Beach vol­ley­ball will in­clude 12 women’s and 12 men’s teams, fast5 net­ball will have eight women’s teams and the rug­by sev­ens will com­prise six men’s and six women’s teams.

It is ex­pect­ed that more than 1,000 ath­letes from 72 coun­tries be­tween the ages of 14-18 will par­tic­i­pate in the games.