LeVaughn Flynn, Staff Reporter

The sixth Western Union West Kingston Summer Games was launched yesterday at the Tivoli Gardens Sports Complex, with Sports Minister Olivia 'Babsy' Grange imploring the sponsors to establish similar competitions across the island.

Grange said the competition played an important role in deve-loping innate inner-city talent.

"(This tournament) is a celebration of youthful vibrancy, energy and talent found within our inner cities and it offers us a possible chance at finding answers to some of the challenges the country now faces," said the minister. "I encourage the managers at Western Union to move one step further and have your presence felt in similar summer programmes right across the country."

The competition, which includes netball and basketball and will be hosted at Tivoli Gardens until August 10, has been kind to the host team, with Tivoli winning the netball competition the five previous years and only losing the basketball title once.

Teams competing

Twenty teams will compete in each sport and they will be supplemented by a sponsorship worth $1.8 million.

Dennis Hutchinson, coach of reigning basketball champions Tivoli Gardens, whose only defeat for the title was to Arnett Gardens in 2006, said he will be using the league to fine-tune his team for the KFC National Basketball League, which will run concurrently.

"We're really going to use it to get fit and develop some good relations and camaraderie," he said.

Sylvester Campbell, coach of the netball team, said his team was not as strong as when it competed in the Super League recently, but they would still be hard to beat.

"We are not as strong right now, but we expect to do well," said Campbell. "Tivoli is hard to beat because we have such a good foundation."