T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee Pres­i­dent Di­anne Hen­der­son has giv­en her back­ing to the de­ci­sion by the Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion (CGF) for a scaled-down 22nd edi­tion of the Com­mon­wealth Games, which will be held in Glas­gow, Scot­land, in 2026, from Ju­ly 23 to Au­gust 2.

The CGF on Tues­day con­firmed its Sep­tem­ber 18 an­nounce­ment that plans by Glas­gow to host the qua­dren­ni­al Games were to move for­ward af­ter the Scot­tish and UK gov­ern­ments re­moved po­lit­i­cal road­blocks.

Glas­gow, which stepped in to host the event af­ter the Aus­tralian state of Vic­to­ria with­drew last year due to ris­ing costs, last host­ed the Com­mon­wealth Games in 2014.

But it will have a very dif­fer­ent, stream­lined look when it re­turns there in two years’ time, with on­ly 10 sports to be played out over four venues at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of about £140 mil­lion.

“The Games had got­ten out of hand—it was too big and try­ing to be a’mi­ni Olympics’,” Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion chief ex­ec­u­tive Katie Sadleir told BBC Sport.

Ear­li­er, Sadleir said: “We want to cre­ate a sus­tain­able mod­el that can go around the Com­mon­wealth be­cause the Com­mon­wealth mem­bers love the Com­mon­wealth Games, and we want to take it there as well.”

The ten sports will fea­ture ath­let­ics and para-ath­let­ics (track & field), swim­ming and para swim­ming, artis­tic gym­nas­tics, track cy­cling and para track cy­cling, net­ball, weightlift­ing and para pow­er­lift­ing, box­ing, ju­do, bowls and para bowls, 3x3 bas­ket­ball, and 3x3 wheel­chair bas­ket­ball.

A dozen oth­er sports that were staged at the most re­cent Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham 2022 were dropped from the pro­gram, al­low­ing Scot­tish of­fi­cials to de­liv­er a low-cost Games in less than two years.

The Games have un­der­gone a re­struc­tur­ing, and sev­er­al sports that were part of the 2022 edi­tion have been cut or have not been in­clud­ed in the ini­tial pro­gram. Over 1,800 ath­letes less than 2022, here’s a com­par­i­son of which sports were cut or are no­tably miss­ing: Div­ing (Aquat­ics), bad­minton, beach vol­ley­ball, crick­et (women’s T20), moun­tain bik­ing, rhyth­mic gym­nas­tics, field hock­ey, para­pow­er­lift­ing, rug­by sev­ens, squash, ta­ble ten­nis, triathlon, and wrestling.

Reached for com­ment, Hen­der­son not­ed that the an­nounce­ment by the Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion (CGF) to have a ten-sport pro­gramme will en­sure an ac­tion-packed broad­cast sched­ule across each day of com­pe­ti­tion and will be ap­peal­ing to spec­ta­tors ex­pect­ing to en­joy a mul­ti-sport event. 

Hen­der­son al­so point­ed out that paras­port, which was a first in the re­cent Trin­ba­go 2023 Com­mon­wealth Youth Games (CYG), will be ful­ly in­te­grat­ed as a key pri­or­i­ty with six paras­ports.

She added, “The Games are a bridge to the Com­mon­wealth Games of to­mor­row—an ex­cit­ing first step in the CWG jour­ney to re­set and re­de­fine the Games for a tru­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive, flex­i­ble, and sus­tain­able mod­el for the fu­ture."

This com­pact game builds on the Lega­cy of Glas­gow 2014.

Re­flect­ing on what was key to se­lect­ing the sport­ing dis­ci­plines, Hen­der­son said, “The sports list was based on sev­er­al con­sid­er­a­tions to en­sure a bal­anced pro­gram: uni­ver­sal­i­ty of par­tic­i­pa­tion, qual­i­ty of com­pe­ti­tion, con­sumer and com­mer­cial ap­peal, ben­e­fit to hosts, align­ment with CGF val­ues, gen­der bal­ance, and an ap­pro­pri­ate mix of sport dis­ci­plines.

With re­spect to the dis­ci­plines omit­ted, Hen­der­son added, The CGF is as­sur­ing all sports that were ex­clud­ed that this does not set a prece­dent for fu­ture games, and there will be an op­por­tu­ni­ty for sports to re­turn for fu­ture edi­tions.

This Games re­set show­cas­es the CGF am­bi­tion to trans­form the Games in­to a flex­i­ble and sus­tain­able mod­el that min­imis­es costs, in­spires ath­letes, ex­cites hosts and in­ter­na­tion­al fed­er­a­tions, and de­liv­ers in­creased so­cial im­pact.

How­ev­er, the lo­cal pres­i­dents of the T&T Squash As­so­ci­a­tion, Di­ane Julien, Pres­i­dent of the T&T Squash As­so­ci­a­tion, said the de­ci­sion to omit the sport of squash is a to­tal dis­ap­point­ment.

She added, ‘Our pres­i­dent at the World Squash Fed­er­a­tion (Zena Wooldridge) would have is­sued a joint state­ment with the Scot­tish Squash body ex­press­ing their deep dis­ap­point­ment by the news that squash will not be one of the ten sports con­test­ed at the con­densed 2026 Com­mon­wealth Games in Glas­gow.

“Squash is set to make its Olympic de­but at the LA28 Olympic Games and has been a core sport of the Com­mon­wealth Games since first be­ing con­test­ed at Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

How­ev­er, de­spite hav­ing ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture in place at Scot­stoun fol­low­ing a fan­tas­tic squash com­pe­ti­tion at the Glas­gow 2014 Games, it is dis­ap­point­ing that squash was not sub­mit­ted for in­clu­sion af­ter the num­ber of sports was re­duced from 19 in 2022 due to the ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances of the 2026 Com­mon­wealth Games.

This de­ci­sion is par­tic­u­lar­ly frus­trat­ing for Scot­land’s and the Com­mon­wealth’s top squash play­ers, who work tire­less­ly to rep­re­sent their coun­tries at ma­jor games.

WSF and Scot­tish Squash re­main com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing these ath­letes by pro­vid­ing the best com­pet­i­tive op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­hance their skills and proud­ly rep­re­sent their coun­tries.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the WSF and Scot­tish Squash have re­ceived as­sur­ances that this de­ci­sion for a con­densed event in 2026 will not im­pact the in­clu­sion of squash in­to fu­ture Com­mon­wealth Games.

Julien added, “We at the TTSA are al­so very dis­ap­point­ed, and we don’t know if there will be any fur­ther dis­cus­sions or ne­go­ti­a­tions to see if the de­ci­sion can be re­versed to have the sport in­clud­ed.

“The Com­mon­wealth Games are one step un­der the Olympic Games for our ath­letes, and with the Olympic Games two years away af­ter the Com­mon­wealth Games take place in Glas­gow, it is re­al­ly a big dis­ap­point­ment to us,” said Julien.

Daymi­an Stew­art, Pres­i­dent of the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion, ad­mit­ted that the ex­clu­sion of beach vol­ley­ball from the Com­mon­wealth Games is a sad thing, but we must not feel it is un­done.

He added, “We un­der­stand the sys­tem we op­er­ate in at the Com­mon­wealth Games lev­el, and beach vol­ley­ball is not one of these core sports of the Com­mon­wealth Games but one of the op­tion­al sports that is se­lect­ed by who­ev­er is the host coun­try.”

An Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) and a mem­ber of the NORCE­CA Beach Vol­ley­ball Com­mis­sion, Stew­art added, “So, just like when we host­ed the Youth Com­mon­wealth Games when we se­lect­ed beach vol­ley­ball, the Ba­hamas and Gold Coast of Aus­tralia as well as Cana­da all se­lect­ed the sport to be part of their games as well.”

“But if you have a host coun­try that is not a top or dom­i­nant beach vol­ley­ball play­ing na­tion, then they wouldn’t se­lect beach vol­ley­ball as a ma­jor sport to be part of their games, and with the event in Glas­gow be­ing a scaled-down one, then I think Scot­land made the best choice to suit their needs in elim­i­nat­ing beach vol­ley­ball from the list of sport­ing dis­ci­plines, but at the same time it al­so pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for an­oth­er sport.”

So, yes, it’s sad for us as mem­bers of the beach vol­ley­ball fra­ter­ni­ty in terms of our de­vel­op­ment plan with the Olympic Games to come in 2028, and it al­so hurts the am­bi­tions of the ath­letes as well, but that’s how the cook­ies crum­ble at times,” stat­ed Stew­art. 

Dr. Shellyanne Wil­son, the T&T Ta­ble Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion, not­ed that her sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion was stunned about the news.

She added, “We were very shocked and dis­ap­point­ed to learn of the de­ci­sion to re­move ta­ble ten­nis from the Com­mon­wealth Games. As a sport, it is ex­treme­ly pop­u­lar in Com­mon­wealth na­tions, so its re­moval was quite sur­pris­ing.