SIX sports, athletics, badminton, boxing, shooting, tennis and weight-lifting will feature in the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games in Delhi but not swimming, a sport which provided Jersey’s Daniel Halksworth with a gold and silver medal in last year’s Games in Bendigo, Australia.

At a meeting of the Commonwealth Games Federation’s General Assembly held in Melbourne recently, delegates were told that the Youth Games would take place between 1 and 7 October 2008 – and that the venue for the 2011 Youth Games will be the Isle of Man.

Alan Cross, who represented the Commonwealth Games Association of Jersey, in Melbourne, said that the announcement that the Isle of Man had been chosen for the next but one Youth Games was particularly well received by smaller countries.

‘They were pleased because they will never be able to host a major Games programme,’ he said, adding that the total number of competitors will continue to be capped at 1,000.

He also said that the event will be rotated around the six regions of the Commonwealth and that after the full Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March next year, and in Delhi in 2010, both Glasgow and Cape Town, South Africa, have indicated their intention to bid for the 2014 Games.

Meanwhile other sports which featured in the Youth Games in Bendigo, which have been dropped for 2008, include cycling, rugby sevens, gymnastics and bowls.