Two chartered flights fly Team Seychelles to Madagascar |25 August 2023

The second batch of athletes pose for a souvenir photo before boarding the Air Seychelles chartered flight (Photo: Neil Sirame)

Two chartered flights flew the last groups of athletes to Madagascar yesterday for the 11th Indian Ocean Islands Games which kick off today.

President Wavel Ramkalawan was among the passengers on board the first flight yesterday afternoon. He will be attending the opening ceremony of the Games at the Mahamasina stadium in Antananarivo at 6pm local time today.

Before embarking on board ‘Pti Merl De Zil’, President Ramkalawan, in a brief interview with the media, shared his last thoughts and wishes: “I have been following our athletes throughout their preparations and especially during the last weeks and I feel they are very enthusiastic and want to win. My presence here is merely to provide support.”

President Ramkalawan added that as soon as he lands in Madagascar, he will be visiting all the athletes at their place of accommodation and will attend the opening ceremony. “I am happy to see the encouragement being given to the athletes as well as the positive attitude amongst the Seychellois athletes. I wish that Team Seychelles would bring home a maximum number of gold medals,” shared the head of state.

Out of the 19 sporting disciplines on the programme, Seychelles will be represented in 15, namely athletics, basketball 3x3 and 5x5, football, volleyball, weightlifting, petanque, judo, swimming, tennis, badminton, table tennis, karate, boxing, handball and cycling.

Two members of the Youth Assembly, Saïd Lesperance and Abigail Faure are also part of the presidential delegation. They shared how grateful and happy they are, adding that they expect to learn a lot from this experience. Saïd Lesperance also congratulated the two Youth Assembly members, namely Jefferson Isaac and Eugene Aglaé who will be taking part in the debates at the games and mentioned that it is the first time that two young honourables are accompanying the president abroad.

The three chartered flights – one which left on Wednesday with First Lady Linda Ramkalawan and the Minister for Sports Marie Celine Zialor on board – were facilitated by national carrier Air Seychelles.

Neil Sirame