The 2024 Mi­lo Games will give a fur­ther 8,000 young stu­dent-ath­letes their chance in the spot­light when it runs off on March 5-6 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

This is the 34th con­sec­u­tive meet that will ben­e­fit from Nes­tle and Mi­lo’s sup­port. The in­vest­ment has helped the zone high­light the ben­e­fits of train­ing and prop­er di­et to thou­sands of chil­dren and al­so in­clud­ed valu­able ed­u­ca­tion about na­tion­al he­roes.

The first edi­tion was held in 1987 at Fa­ti­ma Col­lege Ground with nine schools par­tic­i­pat­ing. At this year’s edi­tion, 24 schools are ex­pect­ed to com­pete.

Or­gan­is­er Kelvin Nan­coo, speak­ing at the launch held at Nes­tle, Head Of­fice in Val­sayn on Mon­day, said the Games had been a ma­jor first step for some 45,000 ath­letes.

“We have pro­duced 40 na­tion­al ath­letes for our coun­try, with world cham­pi­on Je­hue Gor­don and Com­mon­wealth gold medal­list Michelle-Lee Ahye stand­ing out,” Nan­coo boast­ed.

He added that stand­outs Si­mon Pierre, Fana Ash­by, Cleav­on Dil­lion, Re­nee Clarke, Hon­ore Mc­Don­ald, Kervin Mor­gan, Jonathan Hold­er, Ale­na Brooks, and Shani­qua Bas­combe had al­so graced the Games.

Gor­don was nos­tal­gic about be­ing back at the launch and joked that as a mid­dle-dis­tance run­ner, he still re­mem­bers miss­ing out on a re­fresh­ing drink of Mi­lo. The world ju­nior and se­nior 400-me­tre hur­dle cham­pi­on im­plored the ath­letes at Mon­day’s launch to see the val­ue of the op­por­tu­ni­ties in front of them.

“The Mi­lo Games def­i­nite­ly opened up my eyes to be­liev­ing in my­self and to re­alise that I had the tal­ent to run,” he said. “Now I’m a world se­nior and ju­nior record hold­er over the 400 me­tres hur­dles and I at­tained my de­gree while be­ing a pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete.

“I know some of you think that sport is it but it’s not, there’s go­ing to come a time when you are go­ing to re­tire, don’t use sports and train­ing, to not do your home­work or go to class but use it as an op­ti­miz­er for your life.”

Mi­lo’s Con­sumer mar­ket­ing man­ag­er for the An­glo-Dutch Caribbean, Neke­sha Bartholomew-Ramey al­so made her de­but at the Games and un­der­lined its im­por­tance to its par­tic­i­pants.

“Through you, young ath­letes from the East and West of Port-of-Spain school dis­tricts,” Bartholomew Ramey said “we are re­mind­ed of the pow­er of sport to unite com­mu­ni­ties and re­al­ly in­still the val­ues that will shape your fu­ture as lead­ers of T&T”

Af­ter the Games have end­ed, the zone will com­pete at the 2024 Ro­tary Games, where the West B team has won 29 times and West A, twice in its 33-year his­to­ry.