Elton Tucker, Assistant Editor - Sport

AN International Olympic Committee (IOC) regional seminar on sport and the environment began at the Courtleigh Hotel in New Kingston yesterday.

The two-day seminar, which was officially opened by Governor General His Excellency Prof. Kenneth Hall, has attracted delegates from across the Caribbean and North America and will be presided over by chairman of the IOC's Commission on Sport and the Environment, Dr. Pal Schmitt of Hungary.

President of the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA), Mike Fennell said Jamaica was asked by the director in charge of the Commission, Tomas Sithole, to host the seminar and he did not hesitate to say yes.

Fennell added that the seminar will help participants to become more aware of the connection between sport and the environment.

"The main aim of the seminar is to make National Olympic Committees (NOC) more aware of environmental issues and how they relate to sport," Fennell said. "It will also highlight and promote the leadership roles that they have to play, particularly in the areas of providing a better environment for people to participate in sport both at the higher and grassroot levels."

Governor General Hall, in opening the seminar, said he was pleased that it was taking place in an environment which supports regionalism.

"You could well understand my joy when I heard that all the English-speaking countries and in this case Haiti are included," the Governor General said.

The Governor General added that the seminar was taking place in an important point in the sporting calendar as the region will be hosting the Cricket World Cup in 2007.

"... I do recall that in the early stages that it was felt that World Cup 2007 was an event and the idea was that you were simply hosting a few cricket matches. Before long, however, it dawned on all of us that we have to organise, that we have to provide the right environment, that we have to provide the right kind of facilities in the right environment, that we have to make provision for an invasion or shall we say welcoming outside delegates. All of which will create inevitable strains on the environment and on our facilities," Governor General Hall Hall said.

The delegates include representatives from Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada , Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, St. Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, United States and United States Virgin Islands.