… Dick eyes schools league for 2020

GUYANA’S top table tennis club, the Titans TTC, recently concluded an outreach at President’s College in Golden Grove, East Coast Demerara following an invitation from the institution’s Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) in a bid to reintroduce the sport to the students.

Speaking to Chronicle Sport, Titans’ founder and president, Dwain Dick, hailed the outreach as a success; “We were invited by the PTA to see if we could resuscitate some interest in the sport. The response was overwhelming. Two visits saw more than 80 students including more than 30 females indicating interest.”

He revealed; “It is our hope that we can introduce the sport into the curriculum for those intending to write CSEC PE and use table tennis as their sport of choice. This ties in with our (Titans TTC) goal of introducing 1 000 players to the sport by 2020 and pioneering a school league, which we can use as the basis for talent identification to benefit the national teams”.

Meanwhile, Dick urged the public at large to support the school, as they seek to reinstitute the sport among the students; “We hope that persons can come on board and support in terms of assisting the school with tables, racquets, balls and the necessary equipment needed to help bring PC to the forefront of schools table tennis.”

Zeroing in on Titans’ plans for the schools league, Dick explained; “We are looking to form clubs in several schools under the Titans umbrella, where we will be providing all the technical expertise in terms of coaching and other forms of support, we are focusing on implementing that this year, so by next year we hope to have those schools at a highly competitive level to form our league for which we will be seeking corporate sponsors.”

“This initiative is so that table tennis can have the depth and longevity to always have an abundance of talent to choose from among our youths. We have already identified Mae’s Secondary and Westfield Prep school for our summer programmes. We are positive that this will take us in the direction of a strong base of talent available for the future”.

The Titans TTC have proved that they are head and shoulders above other clubs in Guyana and are heavily focused on youth development in the sport.

This is heavily reflected in the fact that they provide almost the entire National Junior and Cadet teams with players, in addition to having the male and female National U-13, U-15 and U-18 champions in Jonathan Van Lange and Thuraia Thomas.