XVIII Commonwealth Games-Team Seychelles off tomorrow morning |04 March 2006

Twenty-two male and female athletes make up the Seychelles team who will compete in seven of the 16 sporting disciplines during the 12-day (from March 15 to 26) Commonwealth Games, the second largest sports carnival after the Olympic Games.

The seven disciplines in which Seychellois will appear are athletics, boxing, weightlifting, badminton, table tennis, swimming and cycling.

The athletes chosen for the Games based on their recent performances are Lindy Leveau-Agricole, Evans Marie, Céline Laporte (athletics), Hudson Mathieu (cycling), Shrone Austin, Steven Mangroo, Bertrand Bristol, Adrian Nanty (swimming), Georgie Cupidon, Juliette Ah-Wan, Cynthia Course, Steve Malcouzane (badminton), Godfrey Sultan, Janice Esparon (table tennis), Patrick Camille, Alvin Gabriel, Jovet Jean (boxing), Clementina Agricole, Steven Baccus, Julie Matatiken, Romeo Siméon and Janet Thélermont (weightlifting).

The other members of the Seychelles team are Simon Lespoir (chef de mission), Michel Bau (general team manager), Mikola Avilov. Olivier Pauly (athletics coach), Luo Guo Hui (badminton coach), Rene Michaud (table tennis coach), Rival Payet (boxing coach), William Dixie (weightlifting coach), Manuel Mendoza Marin (swimming coach) and Lucas Georges (cycling coach).

Seychelles National Olympic Committee president Antonio Gopal and the local Olympic body’s secretary general Alain Alcindor are the two invited guests.

This is the fifth time Seychelles participates in the Games after past participations in Auckland, New Zealand in 1990; Victoria, Canada in 1994; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998; and Manchester, England in 2002.

Seychelles has won just three medals – two silver and a bronze - in these Games which see the participation of athletes coming from Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe and Oceania.

All three medals were won by boxers who have retired and are now coaches.

The two silver medals were won by Roland Raforme (heavyweight) and Jerry Legras (light welterweight) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998, while Rival Cadeau (now Payet) won the bronze medal for Seychelles in Victoria, Canada in 1994.

Payet, it is must be noted, missed out on a possible silver or gold medal after failing to be on time for his semifinal bout against Irishman Jim Webb who went on to capture the gold medal.

In Manchester, England in 2002 during the XVII Commonwealth Games, local athletes did not win any medal and not even one Seychelles record in athletics, swimming and weightlifting was broken.

This was in fact the second time Seychelles did not win medals at the quadrennial Games. The first time was in 1990 in Auckland, New Zealand when the country made its first appearance in the Games which are also known as the Friendly Games.

Many star athletes are to grace the Games with their presence. Some of them include the world's fastest man, Asafa Powell of Jamaica, Jamaican 200-metre Olympic champion Veronica Campbell, Kenya's 5,000-metre world champion Benjamin Limo, England's world marathon record-holder Paula Radcliffe, Olympic 400-metre gold medallist Tonique Williams-Darling of the Bahamas, swimmers Ryk Neethling, Roland Schoemann (of South Africa) and Ian Thorpe of hosts Australia.

G. G.