PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – Perennial champions, Mona, are celebrating a remarkable sixth title success in the last seven stagings of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Games.

At the end of the biennial Games, Jamaica’s Mona had gathered a championship-winning 102 points to outgun the Barbados campus Cave Hill (80).

The Trinidadian hosts, St Augustine, finished bottom of the table with 56 points.

The multi-sport event concluded with Mona securing their 15th outright victory in the 44-year history of the Games, capturing the top female team, top male team, top technical team and victrix ludorum (Tanice Barnett) awards in a full day of track and field events.

Cave Hill’s athletes could only muster 195.5 points and St Augustine’s efforts yielded a mere 149, leaving Mona with a massive total of 266.5 points.

More than 400 athletes from the three campuses competed in track and field, football, netball, cricket, volleyball, basketball, 6-a-side hockey, swimming, table tennis and lawn tennis.

Apart from track and field, Mona copped top honours in tennis, swimming, netball, women’s basketball, women’s football and women’s volleyball.

Cave Hill emerged champions in men’s and women’s hockey, men’s basketball and men’s volleyball.

St Augustine picked up the table tennis and men’s football titles. 

On the final day, Cave Hill’s cricketers scored 137 for five to defeat St Augustine in an exciting one-day match at the UWI Sport and Physical Education Centre (SPEC).

The UWI Games 2009 had kicked off on Thursday May 21 with a festive Opening Ceremony at which UWI honoured Jai Jebodsingh, Victor Cowan and Freddie Green, who were the collective driving force responsible for ensuring that the UWI Games continued when it was threatened by financial difficulties in 1975. 

The Games were used as a dress rehearsal for the University’s ongoing preparations for next month’s inaugural Caribbean Games, carded for Trinidad from July 12 to 19.

Over 1 300 athletes from across the Caribbean will gather for this significant regional event, which is the very first of its kind, organised by the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC).  
The next UWI Games are scheduled for 2011 at Cave Hill.