Foreign stars interested in Hampton

FOREIGN athletes are clamouring to compete at this year’s 29th edition of the Hampton International Games.

The Games are scheduled to take place at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo on May 3 and 4. Requests have come from ex-England and Commonwealth javelin queen Tesas Sanderson, now operating a sports management company together with Leonard Lothian, and they are offering 12 young athletes to compete at the Games. But contacted yesterday, Games chairman Rawle Raphael said he has received no reply to a letter sent to Sport and Youth Affairs Minister Roger Boynes and other government ministers.

Raphael wrote Minister Boynes and other ministers seeking a meeting to discuss his committee’s request of a $10 million grant/soft loan, in a drive to see the Games achieve Grand Prix status from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The Games chairman said his committee promised to repay the grant/soft loan within two-years after gaining Grand Prix status. Raphael recieved communication from Lothian yesterday indicating that Briton Shani Andertson, Jamaicans Danny McFarlane, Jermaine Gonzales and Kerron Stewart, Sri Lankan Damayanthi Darsha are among the 12 athletes likely to come to Trinidad and Tobago.

McFarlane was a finalist in the 2000 Olympic Games 400 metres, Gonzales got bronze in last year’s World Junior Championships over 400 metres and Stewart was a relay 100 metres gold medallist and fourth placed in the individual event at last year’s World Junior Championships.
Darsha is current Asian Games woman gold medallist over 400 metres with a personal best of 51.05 seconds and Sanderson has clocked 11.34 seconds for the 100 metres and is current British national champion and Commonwealth Games finalist over 100 and 200 metres.
Meanwhile, Raphael has called a technical meeting at which athletic organisations have been asked to send two representatives each. This meeting is to take place at the audio visual room, Hasely Crawford  Stadium, from 5 pm on March 10.

At the meeting, items to be discussed will be seating of athletes in the athletes lounge, games rules and admission tickets for athletes and clubs or schools. Hampton International Games will be officially launched two days prior to the meeting however, with a fun run-walk around the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain starting opposite the Botanic Gardens. All local athletes, soca artistes and calypsonians are invited, with the first 100 finishers — 50 men and 50 women — receiving tickets valued $120 to the main stand for  the games.
Other finishers will get one ticket each valued $40 for admittance to the Concrete Stand. Registration for the fun run-walk cost $10 per athlete and athletes have until 3 pm on race day to register.