Welcome to Sporting Barbados 2008, our eleventh annual publication.

Sporting Barbados is a unique sports tourism publication that extols the virtues of the wide range of sport and leisure activities on the island from a visitor's perspective. It is an ideal medium to use to evaluate a club tour, personal holiday, sports trip, warm weather training or simply to watch a top event. We don't claim to include everything but we come pretty close, and our biggest regret is that the economies involved in publishing mean that we can't give every sporting activity the space it deserves.

We have also gone to great lengths to include articles on our beautiful island, its activities and its attractions, and the tremendous range of quality products that can be purchased on island, mostly duty-free.

Barbados has come of age in the international sports arena in the last two years having hosted the prestigious World Cups in both cricket and golf. The public faces of both events were the new Kensington Oval Cricket Ground and Sandy Lane Golf Resort, two magnificent venues that fully deserve all the accolades that followed their superb hosting. Visitors for many years will also have the opportunity to play at the same venues.

All the top sports are featured in this year's edition and from the 'minnows' we have highlighted gymnastics and the emerging talent of Latoyah Ince, a name to watch and a star of the future. Latoyah is one of the number of female sports players that we have highlighted because Sporting Barbados 2008 salutes Women in Barbados Sport.

Finally we would also like to formally thank our advertisers and contributors for their continued support. With so many demands on limited resources we recognize you have options and we appreciate the fact that you recognize the quality of this publication and our ability to deliver. Within our small production team we appreciate the talents of Neil Barnard at 809 Design and Roy Melvin our printer. Both have been with us since inception and come from the top of their trade.

Finally once again thanks to our hard-working Minister of Tourism and International Transport the Hon. Noel Lynch MP for his generous Foreword, and to his hardworking team at the Barbados Tourism Authority. The Minister has vision and enterprise and has not been afraid to put Barbados at the forefront of international sports tourism.

We salute his courage and conviction with eleven years service in the same cause!

Enjoy Sporting Barbados 2008.