Some of Guyana’s young, talented and brightest table tennis prospects departed Guyana on Tuesday morning en route to the United States of America to participate in the North American Teams Table Tennis championships schedule for November 27 – 30 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Centre in Maryland, USA.The team represents the nucleus of Guyana’s table tennis talents and the next generation of future champions with players straddling from ages eight-years to the senior levels.
The U.S. Open team table tennis championships, one of the biggest team championships in the world, embrace over 200 teams and 1000 participating players from all over the world. The format of the competition/championships offers a wide variety of players.
It also exposes participating players to both higher and lower ranked players with an extensive amount of matches (provides participating players with an average of over 15-20 matches per player) which truly provides the environment to develop our players’ talents.
The Guyana Table Tennis Association views the players’ participation in these championships as a very pivotal engagement for the development of our players given that several of them were unable to key international competitions in 2015.
In this regard GTTA views our team’s participation in these championships and in future high level training and competitive environments similar to their competing international peers as very critical to providing them with much needed exposure, nurturing their talents, developing their tactical and technical abilities
The USA offers a lower cost route to providing exposure and training to our athletes.
The male team includes Shemar Britton, Nigel Bryan, Joel Alleyne and Elishaba Johnson, while the female team has Priscilla Greaves, Neveah Clarkston, Delecia Cummings, Aneka Philips and Thuraia Thomas.
The U13 boys’ team features Brandon Jaikaran, Tyriq Saunders, Jamal Nicholas, Yeudistir Persaud, Navindra Persaud and Niron Bissu while the u15 unit has Alec Hopkinson, Miguel Wong and Nicholas Romain.
The Boys 11 Years and Under team includes Isaiah Layne, Colin Wong and Krystian Sahadeo, while the veterans will see Raynor Hilary Anderson (Copter) in action.
The coaches are Idi Lewis, Hilary Anderson, and Donald Duff, while the team manager is Mahindranauth Jaikaran.
Other members include Dawn Chung (Delegate), Bibi Gaffar (Manager), Rhonda Greaves (Asst Manager), Helen Stanley (Chaperone) and Hermeouna Singh (Physiotherapist).
The teams will commence play in the respective categories on Friday 27th November and are expected to return on the 4th December, 2015.