The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

LOCAL organisers of the IAAF World Relays at the weekend are claiming it was a “resounding success”, even though it may be a few weeks before a full assessment of the event’s impact is known.

Mike Sands, the Local Organising Committee’s (LOC) chief executive and vice-chairman, told Tribune Business yesterday that it was “extremely early” to speak to the overall economic impact of the two-day sports event but that initial feedback was optimistic.

“Everyone was burning the midnight oil leading up to the event,” said Mr Sands. “Everyone is just taking a little breather for a couple of days. We haven’t looked at anything yet. We haven’t done any assessments as yet. For example, we have hotel billings that have to be dealt with, reconciliations that have to be dealt with.

“We’re not there yet. Obviously all indications are that it was a resounding success, just by the comments, the attendance and everything else but the actual numbers are far from being in.”

Keith Parker, chairman of the LOC, told Tribune Business: “Overall we’ve got very good reviews internationally. We have had several commendations from the IAAF. Overall people seemed to enjoy it very much.

“I think we matched, and maybe in certain areas exceeded, what we did last year. We certainly had good publicity worldwide and the local media did a great job.

“We’re having an informal preliminary review next week; that’s the executive management team. Probably the end of the week or the following week we will have a more formal meeting where we will do a complete analysis and the important thing is to make note of things that we can still do better in 2017.

“From the general public’s point of view the show itself, the event, was tremendously successful. We could always do better and that’s what we strive to do all the time. We had great team of workers involved, 60 volunteers, 150 people that were employed for months working, but the overall reception internationally as that it was a great event.”

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has awarded the event, which will now be run every two years, to the Bahamas again in 2017.