KIM Kissoon and a number of other sports administrators and coaches were last Friday night honoured by the Guyana Olympics Association (GOA) for their unselfish contributions to the development of sports locally, when the GOA held its annual Appreciation and Awards Ceremony at the Georgetown Club.

Kissoon was honoured for his contribution to the development of table tennis during his tenure as president of the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) from 1988 to 1995.
Treistion Joseph of Guyana Times received the Sports Journalist-of-the-Year award for his wide coverage of Olympic Sports locally.
Winston Bentham, Hassan Mohamed, Wilton Spencer and Charwyn Walker also received awards for their diligence and effectiveness of the development of sports.
Mohamed was especially praised for his initiative of starting the BMX programme way back in the 1970s and which he conducts annually and which has also produced several of the country’s top cyclists.
Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire, Maria Patterson, Priya Ramdhani, Anabelle Sharma and Bernadette Juman-Yassin were all presented with orchids for the support they gave their spouses who are all sports administrators during the year 2013.
A monetary award was given to the Doobay Medical Centre and was received by Dawn Oditt, while GOA’s executive Garfield Wiltshire received the GOA’s Council Member-of-the-Year award and later gave the vote of thanks on behalf of the awardees.
Prior to making the award to Kissoon, GTTA president Godfrey Munroe said during Kissoon’s stint as president (1998-2005) he contributed in excess of $15M towards the development of table tennis in Guyana.
Munroe, in outlying some of Kissoon and his furniture company’s (AH&L Kissoon) contribution to the sport locally, said the GTTA received 60 tennis tables, compliments of Kissoon, who also brought two Chinese coaches to the shores of Guyana for a prolonged period and paid for their accommodation, meals and transportation while they were here. (Michael DaSilva)