Special Olympics Trinidad and Tobago to host Beach Games in November

OVER 130 athletes will feature at the 2024 Special Olympics Caribbean Initiative Regional Beach Games which gets under way in both Trinidad and Tobago, from November 8-10.

Fourteen countries have already confirmed participation and vie for top honours from six sporting disciplines for special athletes.

All events will be held on the beach and include bocce, cricket, beach soccer; beach volleyball, open water swim and an aquathlon.

The event’s theme is “Making Waves.”

The beach games also feature healthy athlete screening, a family health forum, a culture night and a family engagement workshop.

These events will be split between Trinidad and Tobago. Maracas Bay will feature beach bocce, soccer beach cricket as a “demonstration sport.”

Open water swimming and the aquathlon will be at Buccoo Beach while beach volleyball is proposed to be hosted at the Courland Beach Sports Arena in Black Rock.

A Special Olympics of TT (SOTT) statement said the Games was originally started by Kester Edwards, a former SOTT athlete from Tobago, who is now a manager of sport and development at Special Olympics in Washington, DC.

“Beach Games has been pioneered by SOTT since 2016. The event has grown from strength to strength each year, from the initial start with a cross harbour open water swim, beach volleyball and beach football, to the addition of other sports for diversity,” the statement read.

SOTT believes the Beach Games is TT’s “gift” to Special Olympics and its regional participants.

“We feel proud to have been identified to host the first Caribbean regional edition of the Games and feel confident in our ability to host the event as the pioneers of the only multi-sport beach games in Special Olympics.”

The participating countries are Cayman Islands, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, St Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname; Arizona (US), Aruba, Bermuda, Bonaire, Guyana and TT.