Southern Caribbean - Sport

Sport

Cricket is the major sport in the Southern Caribbean. Barbados is a hub for cricket fans and sportsmen, with legendary Sir Garfield Sobers and Clyde Walcott hailing from the island. Brian Lara from Trinidad is also a key player in the West Indies cricket team. In 2007, the West Indies region hosted the Cricket World Cup 2007. Apart from Antigua & Barbuda, Jamaica, and St Kitts & Nevis, all other matches were played in the Southern Caribbean in Queen's Park Oval, Trinidad, Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia, Queen's Park, Grenada, and the final held at the Kensington Oval (seats 28,000), in Barbados.

Football (or soccer) is the second sport in the area, after Trinidad & Tobago was the first team in the Southern Caribbean (and second in the Caribbean after Jamaica), to qualify for the World Cup. The "Soca Warriors" were knocked out in the group stages as they competed in Group B along with England, Sweden, and Paraguay, at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Netball, Hockey, and Volleyball are also competitive sports in the region, although are not as widely recognized as are Cricket and Soccer. Golf is a sport which is mainly based in Barbados' Sandy Lane resort, which hosted the World Golf Championships-World Cup in 2006. Tennis and badminton are on the steady increase in Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago, but they occasionally send national teams to the Commonwealth Games. Athletics is a well established category of sport in the Southern Caribbean in both the Olympics and the Commonwealth games. Sprinters hailing from the Southern Caribbean include Obadele Thompson of Barbados, who won Bronze at a 100m sprint at the Sydney Olympic Games; Ato Boldon of Trinidad & Tobago, who won Silver at the 100m sprint at the Sydney Olympic Games; Marc Burns of Trinidad & Tobago, who won Bronze at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games; Trinidad's 1976 Montreal Olympics Gold Medallist Hasely Crawford; and Grenada's Alleyne Francique, who ran the 400m sprint and won the silver medal at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games (2006). During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Trinidad & Tobago earned a silver medal in the 4x100m men's relay, coming second to fellow West Indian island, Jamaica.