Teams shed members as games approach

page 15

The countdown to the opening ceremonies of the 1997 North American Indigenous Games in Victoria, British Columbia is into the final weeks as Aug. 3 approaches and many of the teams from territories on the Canadian side of the 49th parallel have discovered they just couldn't come up with enough money to send every athlete who was originally scheduled to compete.

But while most of the nine teams on the Canadian side are reducing their rosters, as one Indigenous Games staff member reported, the final number of participants is expected to be fairly close to the originally expected 4,500 youth athletes, 500 senior athletes, 800 coaches and 2,500 cultural participants.

"We're hovering around those numbers," said the games sports manager, Patrick Chenier.

The final deadline for submitting registration papers was June 1. North American Indigenous Games staff members are compiling the final numbers and should announce the totals in the near future.

Chenier said he doesn't have specific information about how the fund raising was conducted for each of the teams. That was left in the control of the individual teams.

"There was the odd team that was not successful in securing funds but that's totally out of our control," he added.

Aside that from that relatively minor bump in the road, it's full speed ahead for this summer's biggest Aboriginal sporting event.

In addition to the nine teams on the Canadian side, there will 18 teams from territories in the United States at the games. There will be competition in a total of 16 team and individual sports.

Chenier said the games staff are confident the Victoria Indigenous games will be the best ever.

"We started from scratch and we built a pretty solid foundation," he said.