With just over two months be­fore the 2025 Carif­ta Track and Field Games get un­der­way at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, from April 19-21, chair­man of the Games Lo­cal Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee (LOC) Lar­ry Ro­many is con­fi­dent the re­lay­ing of the run­ning track at the fa­cil­i­ty will be com­plet­ed the end of March.

“We took up the (run­ning) track. We were con­cerned about what would be the state of the sub­strate (un­der the track) but it is very good. The ma­te­ri­als (for the re­lay­ing) will be here about 23rd of Feb­ru­ary. It takes about 20 days to put down the track. So we are well with­in the March 28 which is the date we have for our­selves to fin­ish it.”

Ro­many, who is al­so the chair­man of the Sport Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SporTT) is up­beat that the HCS will be ready for the Carif­ta tri­als in ear­ly April. “Track and field knows they are hav­ing their (Carif­ta tri­als) on the track. So that has to hap­pen. As far as we are con­cerned every­thing this go­ing ac­cord­ing to plan and we ex­pect it (the games) to be a great suc­cess.”

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia Sport af­ter the launch of the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment’s SHAPE pro­gramme on Mon­day, Ro­many fur­ther ex­plained that the re-grass­ing of the foot­ball field is com­plet­ed.

With the Carif­ta Aquat­ics (Swim­ming and Wa­ter Po­lo) Cham­pi­onships al­so to be held in T&T at the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Cou­va, from April 18-23, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee is an­tic­i­pat­ing that the Carif­ta Games will be launched by the Feb­ru­ary 28.

“Track and field was ready to launch (with) (Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tions of T&T—NAAATT) but the Aquat­ic Sports As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (ASATT) had some is­sues that they need­ed to sort out and the Min­is­ter (Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis) didn’t want (the launch) done (sep­a­rate­ly). They need to be done to­geth­er. Be­fore the end of the month (the games) will be launched.”

He said he is head­ing a 50 plus memer LOC with of­fi­cials from Im­mi­gra­tion, Cus­toms, Trans­port. Po­lice, De­fence Force.

T&T last host­ed the Carif­ta Games mul­ti-sport for­mat in 1991 and the Track and field com­po­nent on­ly in 2005 and Swim­ming in 1997.

The games come two years af­ter the stag­ing of the 2023 Com­mon­wealth Youth Games which saw events took place in T&T.