 The Pole Volt Summit of the St. Lucia Sports Academy and Pole Volt St. Lucia attracted over 100 students of varying ages to the grounds of the academy, aimed mainly at boosting the interest in the sport and to make St. Lucia a mecca for pole-volting in the Caribbean. Assistant Program Director of the St. Lucia Sports Academy, Andy Bale, says the summit targeted students of all ages and levels in the sport and utilized past students of the sports academy to assist with the coaching of those at the novice level. When it comes to this event, now we're actually building for two, three, four, five years down the line. We'll get through the next year or two just fine, but this is really setting the foundation for St. Lucia for the years to come. And really the vision behind Pole Volt St. Lucia that we've had for over a decade now is when people hear St. Lucia, they think pole-volts. And when they hear pole-volts, they think St. Lucia. And we're really trying to take another step in that direction. He says from a pole-vol development aspect, the summit is the biggest of its kind in the Caribbean, building on the momentum created many years ago by St. Lucia professional pole-volter Dominic Johnson. For his part, Dominic Johnson, who is a Commonwealth Games bronze medalist and represented St. Lucia at three Olympics, says the sport is on a correct path, with a surge of new names such as Rick Valsen and Niki Fudanen, who have represented the island well at the regional and international levels. It gives me great pleasure to be a part of it and to see that there's so much young talent here and there's some kids that are ready, almost ready to make it to the next step at American universities, but more importantly getting the young ones involved like we have today. The initiative has attracted interest from Martinique, opening up the summit from a local to a regional perspective. Program Director of the St. Lucia Sports Academy, Victor Conebot, expects more countries to join to help grow the sport within the region as a whole. It is something that we're looking forward to coming 2023-2024. We're hoping to have more Caribbean countries participating. You know, we're looking at Dominica and these other countries participating fully in our summit. Students engaged in the theory aspect of pole-volting and other sessions designed to take them through to their progression to higher jumps. Organizers say this will be followed up with future training to further develop skill once students' interest has been solidified. From the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Education Sustainable Development, Innovation Science Technology and Vocational Training, I am Chris Satney reporting.