11th Indian Ocean Islands Games 2023 – Madagascar |09 February 2023

One of the technical meetings in progress

New technical committee oversees local preparations leading to 11th Games

With the 11th Indian Ocean Islands Games 2023 scheduled to take place in Madagascar from August 23 to September 3 quickly closing in, a technical committee has been set up to oversee the country’s preparations, analysing and assessing the overall plans of the various local sporting federations and associations taking part in the Games.

Made of personnel from the department of youth and sports, the National Sports Council (NSC) and the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga), the committee was initiated following a meeting involving the three parties in December last year, where federations and associations were able to verify the different sporting disciplines to be represented at the 11th Games, including the number of personnel per discipline required.

As part of its tasks the committee will engage in a series of meetings with local sporting associations and federations on an individual basis, where they will be submitting their overall plan for the Games, inclusive of a budget, training programmes and the list of players and athletes pre-selected so far.

In view of the fact that federations and associations have been notified of such expectations since last year, their non-compliance by the end of February, may result in rejection from registration for the IOIG.

Discussion will also focus on issues affecting their preparation and training which will be tackled as well.

The meetings, which started on Tuesday and will go on till tomorrow, are targeting at least four sports governing bodies daily.

It is also worth noting that for now, swimming is being exempted from the 11th Games after being struck off the list of the Registrar late last year, while measures are being put in place to ensure it is represented in Madagascar.

Federations and associations will also get the chance to verify information relating to their participation at the Games during the week beginning February 13 through technical meetings via video conferencing with federations and associations representing their respective disciplines from individual countries participating in the Games.

The technical meetings were scheduled for earlier, but were postponed to next week on account of the recent cyclone to hit Madagascar.

Local federations and associations are being urged to have relevant information on hand for the technical meetings to facilitate discussion.

The technical committee is chaired by the chief executive of the NSC, Marc Arrisol, while the other members are principal secretary for youth and sports Ralph Jean-Louis, president of the Seychelles Olympic Games and Commonwealth Association (Socga) Antonio Gopal, Alain Alcindor, Ruddy Joseph, Steve Hoareau, Bernard Denis, Patricia Ciseau, Lisette Nolin and Maria Dailoo.

The 11th Games will be Madagascar’s third, after hosting the third and seventh Games in 1990 and 2007 respectively.

For the 11th games, 23 sporting disciplines are on the programmes.

They are athletics (track and field – handi-sport), badminton, basketball (3x3 and 5x5), boxing, cycling, equestrian, football, beach soccer, weightlifting, handball, judo, karate, kickboxing, wrestling, swimming (handi-sport), petanque, rugby (7x7 and 15x15), taekwondo, archery, tennis, table tennis, yachting, volleyball, beach volleyball and surfing.

Seychelles will be not taking part in archery, taekwondo, equestrian, kickboxing, surfing and wrestling.

Compiled by Roland Duval