Teams from 31 coun­tries have ar­rived on the is­land of To­ba­go for the start of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games, which will be held across five fa­cil­i­ties be­gin­ning on Sat­ur­day and or­gan­is­ers are hap­py with the role the na­tion­al air­line played in get­ting them there on time.

To­ba­go is set to host the Beach Vol­ley­ball com­pe­ti­tion at a new fa­cil­i­ty built in Black Rock, the Rug­by Sev­ens com­pe­ti­tion at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex, the Triathlon at the Buc­coo Bay Beach Fa­cil­i­ty, the Fast 5 Net­ball com­pe­ti­tion at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex and the Clos­ing Cer­e­mo­ny at the Pi­geon Point Beach Fa­cil­i­ty.

Chair­man of the To­ba­go Task Force for the Com­mon­wealth Games, George Lea­cock, told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Wednes­day that one of the things that made the prepa­ra­tions smoother was Caribbean Air­lines' de­ci­sion to use large jets to trans­port teams to the is­land, al­low­ing for most of their equip­ment to be brought over.

Teams com­ing to the is­land have had to bring bi­cy­cles, mas­sage equip­ment and oth­er bulky lug­gage to fa­cil­i­tate the play­ers.

Lea­cock said had this not been done, lug­gage would have had to be brought over from Trinidad by the in­ter-is­land fer­ries, caus­ing some de­lays.

"We are ready as we ought to be," he said, with re­gard to the fa­cil­i­ties and prepa­ra­tions.

He said when the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) signed on to par­tic­i­pate in the games, the de­ci­sion was to en­sure that it did so through a lega­cy ap­proach by in­vest­ing in the things that can stay on the is­land and ben­e­fit its res­i­dents.

"So any­thing that is rent­ed, we were not in­ter­est­ed. We know that it has to hap­pen as part of the Games, but we're ask­ing that the State han­dles that ex­pense. Any­thing that stays af­ter­wards - score­boards, tim­ing sys­tems, light up­grades, vol­ley­ball equip­ment and all of that, that's ours," he said.

He said the plan for the new fa­cil­i­ty at Black Rock was for it to be big enough for beach foot­ball and al­so for beach vol­ley­ball.

"That means that we have space to han­dle hand­ball, beach bad­minton, beach vol­ley­ball, and beach soc­cer in the fa­cil­i­ty. It broad­ens the scope of the fa­cil­i­ty," Lea­cock said.

He said the bleach­ers are tem­po­rary be­cause, de­pend­ing on what the fa­cil­i­ty is be­ing used for, the bleach­ers will have to be moved around.

He said To­ba­go is close to set­tling a book­ing for a "beach soc­cer" tour­na­ment in No­vem­ber and that there is al­so in­ter­est in a beach ten­nis tour­na­ment.

He not­ed that at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex, they have ex­tend­ed the ex­ist­ing bas­ket­ball court to al­low for net­ball and vol­ley­ball as well.

The Shaw Park foot­ball field has al­so been up­grad­ed, he said, bring­ing the fa­cil­i­ty back to "pris­tine con­di­tion", which will cater for crick­et and foot­ball.

The Triathlon will fea­ture swim­ming at Buc­coo Bay, and the ath­letes will run and cy­cle through the Buc­coo com­mu­ni­ty.

"The win­ner is go­ing to come charg­ing down the goat race track, and it has cre­at­ed a tremen­dous amount of ex­cite­ment with our in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors," he said.

Mean­while, As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Youth De­vel­op­ment and Sport, Wane Clarke, said that the prepa­ra­tions, though plen­ti­ful and chal­leng­ing, are be­ing over­come.

He said many To­bag­o­ni­ans stand to ben­e­fit from the tour­na­ment as well.

"It's ex­cit­ing, the whole en­vi­ron­ment is up­beat. We al­ways say that To­bag­o­ni­ans, in the space are part of every­thing, so they are part of the ben­e­fi­cia­ry. They know they are wel­come right now and we still await peo­ple's pres­ence, their par­tic­i­pa­tion, their in­ter­est, to be a part of it."

Eng­land will face off against Rwan­da on Court 1 of the Beach Vol­ley­ball fa­cil­i­ty at 10 am on Sat­ur­day, with Bermu­da and Kenya will face each oth­er on Court 2, which will of­fi­cial­ly be­gin the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games in To­ba­go.