By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Government and the Bahamas Olympic Committee went all out over the last few days to ensure that Louise Martin, president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, gives the Bahamas a favourable response in the bid to host the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games.

But the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation prefers to wait until she spreads the good news with her collegiate first about how prepared the Bahamas is to fill in for St Lucia.

Martin, who represents Commonwealth Games Scotland, is in town with Rachel Simon, coordinator of the Commonwealth Youth Games, on a site inspection of the sporting venues and hotel accommodations for the hosting of the multiple sporting event, scheduled for July 17-24, 2017. They will complete their inspections today.

Hopefully within the next two weeks when they meet in the Isle of Man, Martin said she will inform the Bahamas Olympic Committee, which has spearheaded the site visit, on whether or not the Bahamas has been granted the approval. But from all indications, she noted that she doesn’t see why the Bahamas will not be successful.

The Bahamas stepped in after St Lucia, who was originally awarded the bid to host the games from November, 2011, had to withdraw because of financial concerns to be able to create suitable venues to stage the event.The Bahamas is one of a list of three countries who are now bidding to host the games.

“So far, everybody has been very helpful,” Martin said. “We’re getting the information that we asked for and if they don’t have it, they are finding it for us, so everything has been going great here. We still have tomorrow (today) to go before we are finished, but it’s been going great.”

During the course of the first two days of her site inspection, Martin said she has been impressed with the enthusiasm that everybody has shown towards them in getting the games off the ground.

“From the Prime Minister right down to your youth and sports minister and everybody else we have had to deal with, we have had some very good responses,” Martin said. “We want to make this an educational and cultural experience for these young athletes because the majority of them may never ever get a chance to come back here again if the games are hosted here.

“Yes, they will be competing, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not the only reason why we host these games. This is something special for the young people and that is what the games is all about. But we still have a long way to go in making the final decision. So we are here to make sure that everything is tight and we have all the answers to everything that we need.”

Bahamas Olympic Committee president Wellington Miller and secretary general Romell Knowles entertained the two dignitaries on the site inspection. He said they have worked with all of the relevant parties to ensure that Martin and Simon get a good report to turn into their collegiate in their bid to ensure that the Bahamas secures the rights to host the games.

“We went down to the Sports Center (Wednesday) to visit all of the sites and the good thing that they liked about it is that all of the sporting disciplines are in one area,” he said. “Once you go down there to watch any one of the sports, you can walk to the other one. To them, that was very good.”

“In fact, everywhere they went and all of the people they have talked to about us hosting the games, they were very pleased with what they saw and heard. They met with the Prime Minister yesterday (Wednesday) and they were very pleased with his speech that he gave.

“Everything seems to be going very well in our favour. We met with some of the hotels today (Thursday) and we have shown them around. The hosts of the various hotels have given them a good tour and they seem to know their product very well. So we seem to be on the right track to hosting the games.”