T&T ready to host CAZOVA U-18 Championships 

TAGARIGUA, Trinidad, December 4, 2013 - The hectic schedule of events hosted by the Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) for the 2013 season will conclude when the Youth (Under-18) Championship comes off in Trinidad and Tobago at the Eastern Regional Indoor Sports Arena, from Thursday December 5 until Sunday December 6. 

The tournament now in its fourth year for the boys and third for the girls was originally carded to be held in Guadeloupe and Martinique earlier this year, but had to be postponed due to a lack of teams.

However a few months later the four-day event hosted by the T&T Volleyball Federation under the presidency of Daymian Stewart is set to take place still with a low number of teams involved.

The teams featuring in T&T are the host country, Barbados, Jamaica, Bahamas after the US Virgin Islands boys teams were forced to withdraw at the 24th hour due to flight cancellations because of bad weather.

It was hoped that the USVI team which was represented at the Technical Meeting by its president Lucille Hobson, would have been able to get a flight to T&T on Thursday, however all possible efforts proved futile due to the busy travelling season of Christmas to the twin island of T&T.

Due to the withdrawal of defending champions USVI, it meant that the boys' competition was now down to three teams, two-time bronze winners and host T&T, 2007 winner and 2012 third place finisher Barbados and Jamaica while in the girls competition, two-time champions T&T, Bahamas and Barbados will do battle.

At the Technical Meeting held at the Le Sportel Inn, Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence on Wednesday December 4 and which involved CAZOVA President Mushtaque Mohammed, head of the Control Committee and Margaret Graham, CAZOVA Secretary and President of the Haiti Volleyball Federation and officials off all the participating teams, a few decision were taken with regards to the staging of the event.

Firstly, a decision was taken to revamp the schedule and format of the competition towards the development of the players.

This meant that instead of the round-robin format of playing each team once and at the end of which the top two contest the final, the revised fixture will see teams in each gender playing each other twice in two sessions per day followed by the top two teams contesting the gold medal match on Sunday afternoon.

Other members of the Control Committee present were Brian Charles (Referee Commission), Philippe Lirus (CAZOV Photographer Delegate); Jose Ramon Perez Vento (Referees Commission President) and Daymian Stewart (T&T Volleyball Federation President).