THE National Sports Commission (NSC) has announced that the reintegration of sport in schools will commence next month with an aim to identifying junior sportsmen and women who could go on to be national athletes.The NSC says that table tennis and lawn tennis are the two selected disciplines that will work as the pilot project for this year.

According to Director of Sport Christopher Jones, the two programmes were chosen based on the fact that they had structural integrity, adding, “They have a strategic development plan that would see it for several years in terms of their structure, to reach the length and breadth of the country, so those two have been identified.”
“Last year, the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) took the lead on behalf of government to meet with several associations to get their strategic development plan for the various disciplines and, of course, lawn tennis and table tennis were out in front,” continued Jones.
The NSC, he said, is keen on providing support for such initiatives, adding that “as of December, containers were packed with the equipment and are being shipped to Guyana to facilitate same.”
Jones noted that there are plans in the pipeline to add other sports to the curriculum to increase diversity, but those associations need to get their plans in order.
He said, “The Guyana Olympic Association and government will again meet with a few other associations throughout this year then would indicate to us that they have the capacity to do same and of course government will lend support to having those included in the school curriculum as well.”
Amateur boxing, he noted, is one association that has been developing its work prigramme and could be an addition once they have solidified their plans and presented them to the NSC.

By Stephan Sookram