The stadium was handed over to the Government and people of Saint Lucia, represented by Prime Minister Honourable Dr. Kenny Anthony and Minister for Education, Human Resource Development, Youth and Sports, Honourable Mario Michel, in July 2002. Its construction was financed by the People's Republic of China. It was given its current name in 2007.
Location
The stadium is located on a wide plain in St Urbain, at the foot of Morne Beausejour in the southern community of Vieux Fort. It is approximately five minutes away from the main population centre in the south of Saint Lucia, and virtually a stone's throw from the Hewanorra International Airport. The stadium is approximately 45 minutes away from the capital, Castries.
Development and history
The National Stadium was one of several projects negotiated by then Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, George Odlum. Preparatory work on the site was undertaken over several months by the Government of Saint Lucia at a cost of Three Million Eastern Caribbean Dollars (EC$3 million), just over US$1 million. In September 2000, the site was handed over to a Chinese construction company, the China National Overseas Engineering Corporation(COVEC).
Over the course of the next two years, COVEC built the stadium superstructure on part of the site, with two spectator stands, a grass field, a rubberized track, lights and large parking areas. Coming in at a total cost of EC$55 million, the stadium was the most modern in the Caribbean at the time of its construction. One of the first events at the stadium, then simply known as the Saint Lucia National Stadium, was the multi-discipline Windward Islands Secondary School Games.
Modern as it is in terms of layout, seating, fixtures and amenities, the stadium was not equipped with an IAAF-certified competition surface. By 2009, such a surface would prove necessary if the St Lucia Athletics Association were to prove successful in its bid to host the XXXVIII CARIFTA Games, a regional track and field championship featuring hundreds of athletes from over 20 territories. Prime Minister Honourable Stephenson King pledged Government's support.
By this time, Saint Lucia had broken off diplomatic relations with mainland China, in favour of links with Taiwan. Starting in late 2008, the Saint Lucia Government scrapped the old running surface, and along with Taiwan, began work rehabilitating the facility, which had suffered through substantial disuse and neglect. The major addition was the installation of an IAAF-certified Mondo track. Total expenditure on the Stadium came to over EC$10 million.
Of that amount, though, more than EC$5 million was spent on support systems and infrastructure. The Government of Saint Lucia never managed to fix the electronic scoreboard, but work was done to install a new photo finish apparatus, repair damaged seating, upgrade the lighting, drainage and plumbing, fix the roof and purchase new equipment. Purchased in collaboration with the Taiwanese, much of the equipment came from major American manufacturer UCS.
CARIFTA 2009
Minister of Youth, Sports, Social Transformation and Public Service, Honourable Lenard Montoute – a former national athlete himself – worked closely with local contractors and of course Mondo, IAAF Official Supplier since 1987, to bring the facility fully up to international standard. Permanent Secretary Donavan Williams headed the team that was charged with delivering the XXXVIII CARIFTA Games in Easter 2009, when the Caribbean would descend upon Saint Lucia.
Saint Lucia delivered. Adjustments had to be made to the programme to account for transportation from the main tourism belt in the island's north, but competition-wise, many considered this the best edition ever of the Caribbean's junior track and field showcase. 15 records were broken or equalled, one in the throws, three in the middle and long-distance events. Grenada's Kirani James broke Usain Bolt's 400m record, and won the Austin Sealy award for most outstanding athlete.
Neville 'Teddy' McCook, president of the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association(NACAC), was impressed by Saint Lucia's National Stadium. During a visit to Saint Lucia in September 2008, he said "This is an excellent facility. I see nothing in the region that compares in terms of availability of rooms and the way you can use those rooms. This is an important stadium with available rooms for medical, media, accommodation, that's excellent."
Amenities and fittings
The National Stadium contains two spectator stands seating a total of eight thousand (8,000) persons. When handed over in 2002, the stated intention was that two other stands to accommodate a further seven thousand (7,000) persons would be constructed in due course by the Saint Lucian Government. The stadium was also intended to be the centerpiece of a stadium complex that would include accommodation as well as indoor facilities for court sports, meetings and so on.
As described by Donavan Williams, the refurbished facility includes "a warm up facility, two High Jump areas, four Triple Jump and Long Jump runways, two Pole Vault runways, one Discus Throw circle, two Shot Put circles and two Javelin Throw runways." Previously, there had been a warmup area beneath the stands, but this was replaced in the refurbishment. The stadium boasts a regulation football pitch and a 400m all-weather Mondo track.
St Jude Hospital
In September 2009, a fire destroyed portions of St Jude Hospital in Vieux Fort, a few miles from the stadium. The Government of Saint Lucia moved the bulk of the hospital's operations to the stadium, where the large, flexible rooms beneath the stands turned out to be ideal for transformation into the main medical facility for the south of the island. In April 2010, Prime Minister Stephenson King said that his government would be rebuilding St Jude on a site close to the stadium.
The Ministries of Sports and Health, along with the Saint Lucia Athletics Association and the board of St Jude, agreed that for the duration of the hospital's stay in the stadium, although the facility would not be available for competition, the track and field installations could be used for training. For much of the 2010 season, therefore, athletics meets were held at venues as disparate as the Mindoo Phillip Park in Castries or the mini-stadium in Soufrière.
As of August 2023, the bleachers are in poor condition as well as the roof, which has begun falling off. Instead, the faculty of the various schools have opted to use the sides of the tracks where students sit on cardboard or metal stands.
Footnotes
Related Research Articles
Castries is the capital and largest city of Saint Lucia, an island country in the Caribbean. The urban area has a population of approximately 20,000, while the eponymous district has a population of just under 70,000, as at May 2013. The city covers 80 km2 (31 sq mi).
George William Odlum was a Saint Lucian left-wing politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Born in Castries, Odlum studied at Bristol University and Oxford University in the United Kingdom before returning to Saint Lucia as Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Trade. After working for the Commonwealth Secretariat and the West Indies Associated States, he formed the Saint Lucia Forum, a left-wing pressure group. This group merged with the Saint Lucia Labour Party in time for the 1974 elections; although the Party did not win, the progress they made allowed them to take power in 1979, with Odlum as Deputy Prime Minister.
Stephenson King is the former Prime Minister of Saint Lucia. He is the Senior Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Ports, Transport, Physical Development, and Urban Renewal. King was the former candidate for the United Workers Party (UWP). He now represents the constituency of Castries North as an Independent candidate as of July 2021, after resigning from the UWP.
The Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) was an English-speaking economic trade organisation. It organised on 1 May 1968, to provide a continued economic linkage between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean. The agreements establishing it came following the dissolution of the West Indies Federation, which lasted from 1958 to 1962.
Saint Lucia, an island nation in the Caribbean islands, has a relatively large tourism industry. Due to the relatively small land area of the country, most of the governmental promotion is performed by the state-operated Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, led by Executive Chairperson Agnes.
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Vieux Fort is a town located near the southernmost point of Saint Lucia, a Caribbean island nation. It is named after a fort that used to watch out towards Saint Vincent towards the south. The population of the town was 4,574 in 2000 while the surrounding district of Vieux Fort has a total population of about 15,132 in 2010.
The St. Lucia Athletics Association (SLAA) is the national governing body for athletics in Saint Lucia, inclusive of track and field, cross country running, road running and racewalking. The Athletics Association was formerly known as the St. Lucia Amateur Athletics Association. The organisation was founded in 1977 to promote Track and Field in Saint Lucia. In 1978 the SLAA became an affiliate member of the world governing body for athletics, then called the International Amateur Athletics Federation, and now known as the International Association of Athletics Federations.
The 36th CARIFTA Games was held in the National Stadium on the island of Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, on April 7–9, 2007. Detailed reports on the results were given.
The 38th CARIFTA Games was held in the George Odlum National Stadium in Vieux Fort, Saint Lucia, on April 10–13, 2009. Detailed reports on the results were given.
Total expenditure on health in Saint Lucia was 6.72% of the GDP in 2014. Health expenditure was at US$302 per capita in 2004. Infant mortality was at 12 per 100,000 births in 2005.
Darvin Edwards is a Saint Lucian competitor in men's High Jump. Darvin was born in Castries.
Makeba Alcide is a Saint Lucian track and field athlete. She holds the Saint Lucia records and OECS records for women's 60m Hurdles, Pentathlon and Heptathlon, and the Saint Lucia record for 100m Hurdles.
Albert Reynolds is a Saint Lucian javelin thrower. Reynolds was born in Castries, and grew up in Babonneau.
Sister Mary Irma Hilger was an American religious sister, who trained as a nurse and founded the St. Jude Hospital and nurse's training school on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. She has been called the "Florence Nightingale of St. Lucia".
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References
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