THESE days, Guyana’s table tennis starlet Chelsea Edghill is busy with college but playing way more table tennis now that she’s living in the United States. But a longing to make it into the table tennis big leagues is still one of her foremost desires.
The 19-year-old is currently doing her undergraduate in Chemistry at Lindenwood University in Missouri, also functioning on the school’s table tennis team, training under coach David Cabreba. While training in the U.S., she’s able to participate in a lot more tournaments that she ever could while in Guyana, but the national women’s singles champion is hungry for more than that.
“There’s only so much that can be done at the college level and I really yearn to play at a professional level,” Edghill acknowledged earlier this week. But of course finances play a major role in holding the Junior Sportswoman-of-the-Year back from her goal.
Nonetheless, for the time being her passion for the sport keeps her going.
“At times you wonder if it’s all worth it, knowing that you can be so much better, but then you remember the main reason why you’re playing – the love of the game – and that’s what keeps you going,” she expressed. “Eventually I will call it quits but that’s no time soon.”
As she bides her time and waits to see just how far she’ll go, in the meantime she’s been putting together quite an impressive rap sheet of performances. So far for the year she’s already placed second in the women’s singles of the College National Districts Competition and had a third place finish in the singles at the College National Regional Competition
She won the women’s Open of the South Bend Open table tennis tournament, was a quarterfinalist in the Under-2450 category of the same tournament, and a quarterfinalist at the College Nationals.
She’s definitely been busy! Last year she took part in 10 tournaments, including Guyana’s National Table Tennis Championships, where she won the women and women’s Under-21 singles titles.
Next month she represents Guyana at the Islamic Solidarity Games and hopes are high to see how well she finishes. But following that, the former Junior Sportswoman-of-the-Year, will be slowing things down a bit, for health reasons.
“I’ll be taking a break to examine my shoulder. I was diagnosed with tendonitis of the biceps and rotator cuff, and I would like to get a second opinion,” she explained.