CHIEF national table tennis coach Linden Johnson says that self-belief will be a critical component if rising table tennis stars Chelsea Edghill and Shemar Britton are to do well when they come up against some of South America’s top young athletes at the South American Youth Championships set for Lima, Peru later this month.

“They just have to be focus and believe in themselves, and stop beating themselves up. GTTA has a lot of confidence in Chelsea and Shemar; we just want to get up their self-belief, and they can create problems against their opponents”, was how the table tennis coach put it when he spoke to Chronicle Sport earlier this week.
Johnson will be travelling with the two players as the table tennis official when the Guyana contingent travels to Peru on September 17 for the Games, which starts next week Monday.
From then the competition will run through September 29.
Guyana is expected to see some 22 youths to participate in the inaugural multisport event, which is being organised by the South American Sports Organisation (ODESUR). The 22 youths will be involved in seven different sporting disciplines namely table tennis, swimming, badminton, athletics, cycling, weightlifting and boxing.
One official from each sporting discipline will accompany the athletes.
In selecting the athletes, the various national sports organisations were tasked with choosing their best Under-18 athletes, and that’s precisely what the GTTA did when they selected Edghill and Britton to represent in the table tennis segment. The pair will participate in the girls’ and boys’ singles, respectively, as well as the mixed doubles competition.
According to Johnson it was no hard work in deciding the two players who were most worthy of representing Guyana at the event, given the training and performances that the two athletes have experienced so far this year.
He said they are the best two in this category, the 18 years and under. Shemar won the Independence men’s, 18 years, 15 years and 21 years open, and Chelsea has been exceptionally stronger than the other girls
“Those players have been training in the USA. However, we will try our best to ensure we use the right training drills and play more matches against senior players and players with different styles. Fitness is important and as coaches we could (only do) so much,” Johnson said.
Edghill will be performing at the event fresh off her performance at the just concluded Caribbean Table Tennis Championships, which followed her return from a training stint in the United States of America.
At the competition Edghill captured a silver medal in the women’s Under-21 category, while she made it all the way to the quarterfinals of the women’s category.
She also teamed up with Trenace Lowe to capture the women’s doubles and brought second in the women’s team competition. Britton is currently training in the USA, He is expected to return this Saturday.