It is a bold declaration from the Vice-President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) that they want to send a total of 15 athletes to the 2015 Carifta Games in St. Kitts & Nevis.

Gavin Hope told coaches and officials at Sunday’s Digicel sponsored Retreat at the Splashmins Resort, that he wants to increase participation in events.
‘This year we sent eight athletes. I want to send 15 in 2015.’
‘I am not going to sit and wait for this policy document. All I need is for you guys to find the children, once they make the qualifying times, and I will get them there.’
His declaration brought cheers and applause from those gathered.
Hope handles the marketing of the sport.
The Carifta Games is set for April 4-6, with the local trials to be run off at the Camp Ayanganna ground on March 7-8 next year.
Athletics President Aubrey Hutson again announced that his focus is primarily on the development of the youth and junior athletes in this country.
At the retreat, coaches threw out the idea to re-introduce the Gold Squad – a pool of the nation’s best youth and junior athletes as well as a senior squad, to work along with the top coaches in the country.
The athletes in the proposed Gold Squad are expected to have a bit more attention year round, to aid in their development and to ensure that Guyana always has athletes at the ready for overseas engagements.
It’s been more than a decade since the AAG last had an active Gold Squad.
That aside, the Association has put out a tentative calendar of events for 2015. No events have been scheduled for the artificial surface at Leonora. It has not yet been commissioned for public use by government.
Olympian Winston George, however, has had practice on the surface. He is in Vera Cruz, Mexico for the Central American and Caribbean Games.
The AAG’s calendar opens with the first Cross Country Race in the National Park on January 17th. The Annual General Meeting is a day later.
Another Cross Country race is set for Berbice later in January, one in Linden in February, and two in Linden and at Enmore inDecember .
Developmental Meets are set for the months of February and March.
A National High Schools Championship in conjunction with the National Youth and Junior Championships is carded for March, but there is some haggling over whether or not to move it up by a few weeks so the association can have more athletes to look at ahead of the Carifta Games.
The Senior National Championship is set for the month of April.

(By Leeron Brumell)