request for financial assistance approved, president of the Bermuda Olympic Association Austin Woods confirmed yesterday.

Each of the estimated 60 local athletes expected to participate in the Games should receive some sort of financial help through Government's Elite Athlete Assistance Fund, following an approach made on their behalf by the BOA.

The total cost of sending the Bermuda contingent to Puerto Rico is estimated to be around $40,000 -- far less than the $100,000 required to send A a significantly smaller squad to the Olympic Games in Barcelona last summer.

While the BOA managed to foot the six-figure bill for the Olympics, Woods said that the CAC Games was not the full responsibility of his association (unlike the Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Pan Am Games) and most of the fund-raising for Puerto Rico had been left in the hands of the respective sports federations.

"We had a request from various federations explaining how finances were tight and that they needed some assistance, so we wrote to the Department of Youth and Sports to ask if we could get help through the elite fund,'' said Woods.

He explained that the request had subsequently been approved, adding: "We are not talking about a lot of money.'' According to Woods the total will amount to approximately $11,000 -- sufficient to cover the full air fare of the elite athletes for which the programme was developed and approximately half of the fare of the other participants.

Woods said that he was not surprised that Bermuda would be sending such a large squad to the CAC Games, noting the fact that several team sports were involved.

"We knew that because of the team sports the numbers would add up. We usually have large numbers for CAC for this reason and because several athletes, swimmers and track and field athletes will be using the event as a qualifier for the Commonwealth Games,'' he said.

The team, which would have been larger had the marksmen not withdrawn, will be headed by chef de mission Stanley Douglas and will include 32 hockey players, 14 sailors, eight swimmers, four tennis players, three cyclists and between three and five track and field athletes.

The complete squad will be finalised shortly.

The sailors will be the first group to leave Bermuda on November 15. The Games will be held from November 20-28.