Dame Louise was instrumental in the launch of the Commonwealth Youth Games in Edinburgh in 2000, and recalled her experience at the CGF General Assembly in Fiji in 1999 where the city secured hosting rights.

She explained the significance of the event in bridging the gap for young athletes to senior competition.

"I had to stand in front of everyone at the General Assembly and ask them, beg them, to let us host the first-ever Youth Games and gave them a reason why, and it was basically we in Scotland and other countries too were losing too many of the top athletes," the Scottish official told insidethegames.

"When you are 14 to 18, you are winning everything at your level, and suddenly you're going into senior level.

"It really flattened a lot of them, no matter how hard you talked to them to try and encourage them to keep going."

The Commonwealth Youth Games is staged for athletes aged 14 to 18, and has featured a wider variety of hosts than the Commonwealth Games.

This year's edition in Trinidad and Tobago featured nine sports, including a debut for fast5 netball, and Dame Louise noted "it hasn’t got any bigger in terms of sports, we're keeping it short with what the host has so we suit them rather than us dictating".

Dame Louise praised organisers for their staging of the Games, and highlighted the use of the Shaw Park Cultural Park for fast5 netball as one of the notable features of Trinbago 2023.

"They have achieved everything, I take my hat off to the Government, all the Government officials, the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee and also the Sports Minister Shamfa Cudjoe," she said.

"She has pushed this as well, and all of them worked for this.

"All of them who have been out watching have loved every minute of it.

"It has also proved to them that they can do it.

"The netball venue is a fantastic venue, it was built as a sport complex.

"That’s the first time a sport has been in it, and that netball field has been there for 10 years waiting to be used and [now] it has been used."

Other highlights for Dame Louise included the performances of home swimmer Nikolai Blackman, who won three gold medals, but she insisted "all the athletes have been advocates for sport and have held themselves in the right esteem and they should all be proud of being a Commonwealth athlete".

"I have been overwhelmed by everything that I've seen," the CGF President said.

"The way athletes have enjoyed [it].

"When I started I told them they will be nervous and have got to perform, but they’ve also got to enjoy it and make friends.

"The friends that they've made here, they will have them for the rest of their lives.

"The same with me, a couple of people I met when I was swimming I'm still in touch, so it's long-lasting."

This was the first edition of the Commonwealth Youth Ganes for six years following on from Bahamas 2017, after Trinidad and Tobago's staging of the event was delayed from 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, it had previously been held on a biennial basis with a view to allowing athletes to participate at two editions.

Dame Louise's Presidency is set to come to an end at the CGF General Assembly in Singapore in November, marking the end of her term.

She believes the Youth Games is a product which works and does not require any radical changes from her successor.

"As far as I'm concerned they will be every two years, so keeping it going, they don't need to be changed in any shape or form," Dame Louise commented.

"Whoever steps in has got a team to deliver everything else, so a President cannot come in and will not come in and change everything."

Organising Committee chair Douglas Camacho claimed after the Closing Ceremony that Trinbago 2023 had proved a major success for the host nation.

"It is truly amazing when we put our minds to something how quickly and efficiently we can execute it," Camacho said.

"We are harsh critics of ourselves, and I think it would be fair to say that even our harshest critics have given us a very good passing grade."