Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
THE WEST Indies Games are set to return in 2009. Their revival - as the 'Caribbean Games' - will be discussed by sports ministers at the CARICOM Task force on Sport who will meet tomorrow through to Saturday at the Jamaica Conference Centre, Kingston.
Development of a Regional Anti-Doping Organisation (RADO), worldwide anti-doping standards and the free movement of sports personnel in the Caribbean will share the agenda.
Speaking at a press conference to announce the conference at the Ministry of Local Government and Sports in Kingston, ministerial advisor Ann Shirley said the track and field competition would allow the Caribbean's best athletes to compete on a regular basis in the region.
Institute of Sports administrative director, Ian Andrews, welcomed the revival.
"First-string athletes tend to be attracted to international events and local athletes get underexposed as a result," Andrews said.
SUPPORT
"This will give them another chance to be seen and I hope it gets the support from the powers that be."
The sixth and final West Indies Games were held in Barbados in 1965 with Jamaica winning 17 out of 28 gold medals. However, the end of the West Indies Athletics Federation in 1961, a year after Jamaica competed as part of a West Indies team at the 1960 Rome Olympics, led to the demise of the games, explained former president of the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA), Richard Ashenheim.
"Following Independence, Jamaica and other countries decided to pull out of the federation after a referendum and impetus was lost after that," Ashenheim said.
"We tried to revive it and Jamaica held a small one in 1964; the last championships being the rather pukka one in Barbados," said Ashenheim.
Shirley, who is also director of the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO), said the organisation is developing a website to keep Jamaican athletes in touch with anti-doping information (http://www.jadco.org.jm).
Shirley is to chair this week's task force meeting.
