PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — The Special Olympics Jamaica (SOJ) basketball team is grateful for the chance to compete at the regional level, even as head coach Elfema Williams targets a podium finish.

The Jamaicans are among teams set to compete at the region’s first-ever Special Olympics 3×3 unified basketball tournament in Guadeloupe. The competition is scheduled to run from November 14-15.

“These players are eager, they have gelled well together, they understand individual duty, and they come together as one. And they have a good chance of a podium place,” Williams told Observer Online on Thursday during the delegation’s layover in Trinidad and Tobago en route to Guadeloupe.

The SOJ coach said her confidence comes from watching the same core of players prepare for a competition the Jamaicans were invited to in Indianapolis, United States, in the summer.

“I’m excited to a degree. We recently did well at a tournament in Indianapolis and I hope we can do it again. We only have one player returning from the group that went there and we did well and won gold. We’re expecting to be on the podium again because everybody was training together from then,” she reasoned.

“I’m not worried about how my team will fare though I see very tall guys here [from other countries]. But I’m not deterred,” Williams added.

Alongside Jamaica, the unified basketball tournament is expected to feature Special Olympics Caribbean delegations from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Maarten, and Trinidad and Tobago. The Guadeloupe programme is set to field two teams.

As a unified event, the tournament offers the chance for athletes with intellectual disabilities to showcase their skills. It aims to promote social inclusion by combining people with and without intellectual disabilities for sport competition, thereby helping to build awareness and to foster behavioural change.

The tournament has the backing of Special Olympics Caribbean and Special Olympics International as well as partners, including Lions Club International Foundation, Aruna Oswal Trust, and Guadeloupe’s government.

Another first for the French-speaking islands of Guadeloupe, located in the eastern Caribbean, will be their programme’s hosting of the symbolic Law Enforcement Torch Run, to officially kick off the tournament.

— Sanjay Myers