After eight packed days of sport, sweat, and striving for victory, The UWI Games are over. Once again, the Mona campus has been crowned UWI Games champion, retaining the title from the last time the campuses met in 2019.
“I really have to give God thanks for everything, everything,” says 25-year-old Abijan Anderson, captain of the Mona women’s football team and co-captain of the contingent of student-athletes from the Jamaica-based campus.
“I just want to first give Jesus all the glory,” she adds.
It’s the final day of The UWI Games and in a few hours the university community will gather in SPEC for the results. Abijan doesn’t know yet that in a few hours she will be hoisting the championship trophy on behalf of her campus and fellow Mona Pelicans. After days of hard work on the football and hockey fields (she played both sports), and hours spent cheering on her teammates from the stands, she is still energetic, and more importantly, hopeful.
“UWI games exceeded all my expectations,” she says. “I love when most teams come fighting. I don’t like when a team is expecting to lose. I like it when everybody comes and they want it just as much as we do.”
Her co-captain, Shavar James, shares her feelings. He is the captain of the championship-winning Mona volleyball team, and would go on to win special awards for Most Valuable Player and Outside Hitter.
“The competition was right across the board,” he says of the challenges the team faced in volleyball and football (his second sport).Shavar has been a stalwart in volleyball for years, both for Jamaica and Mona Campus. He was a member of the 2019 team that placed second against Cave Hill, a loss he was deeply motivated to avenge.
“That Cave Hill match was really one that we were looking forward to, to set the tone
for the rest of the competition,” he says.The Mona Pelicans defeated their rivals and took the volleyball championship trophy.
Currently pursuing his master’s degree in International Public and Development Management, Shavar is already looking forward to UWI Games 2028, and hopes to continue playing for Jamaica as well.
“We should have Caribbean Championships next year. Hopefully I can be fit and make the team,” he says.
Abijan is also looking forward to continuing in sport. She is vice-captain of The UWI Mona FC, a first division club in Jamaica. But she also plays several other sports: hockey, volleyball, tennis, and table tennis. She is the current, 2026 UWI Mona Sports Woman of the Year. If that doesn’t sound like a massive workload, she is also pursuing her master’s in Computer Science and works as a biomedical engineer.
“I use sports for my stress relief from work and study,” she laughs when asked how she does it all. “it’s school during the day, training during the evening, and study and homework afterwards. It’s really just balancing your time and prioritising.”
She is however, focused on her career, which prevents her from putting in the enormous work required to take her sport ambitions further. Although, if the Jamaican national football team were to call her, she would be excited at the prospect.
“It would be nice to represent Jamaica internationally, but I would have to come up with a game plan as to how to balance that with work,” she says.
For now though, the champions have returned to their home campus and are hopefully enjoying some time off from school and sport, satisfied in their winning performance, and proud of their teammates, campus, and themselves.
