Cayman athletes have been busy preparing for the 9-15 July XI NatWest Games on Scotland’s Shetland Islands.
The team, comprising 39 athletes, is a scaled-down version of the team that Cayman has sent in the past.
Reasons for fewer athletes, which have numbered as many as 140 in the past, according to Cayman Islands Island Games president Richard Parchment, are twofold: lack of sponsorship, and the lack of facilities in Shetland for basketball and tennis.
However, he said, those two sports will be represented in Gibraltar.
Shetland is touted as the smallest island, in terms of its 23,000 population, ever to host the games. The island is so small that there are insufficient accommodations for all athletes. The Shetland Islands Games Committee has hired a cruise ship to overcome the problem.
Shetland’s Cayman team will compete with 25 countries in such sports as volleyball, track and field, swimming, and shooting.
‘We are talking about 39 people going to the games, compared with the normal 135 to 140. Because of the accommodations and sports-venue complexities, Shetland would normally have seen about 80 Cayman athletes go. But hurricane Ivan changed this. We have sent out many letters, and only the Ritz-Carlton, Deloitte, and the Cayman Islands Olympic Committee have responded to date,’ Mr. Parchment said.
‘This has even caused us to contemplate not participating, as the funding is very low.’
Mr. Parchment said the team would not be affected by living on the cruise ship.
However, because basketball and tennis will not complete until Gibraltar, organisations for the sports gathered at the 2003 Island Games in Guernsey and decided on a separate tournament so that players would not miss the bi-annual event.
The basketball and tennis teams will send 40 athletes, to Gibraltar, departing on Friday, 24 June.
Mr. Parchment thanked the Ritz-Carlton for track suits; Deloitte for sweat shirts; the Ministry of Sports for assisting with accommodations; Tortuga Rum Company and the Department of Tourism.
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