By Stephan Sookram

A NEW protocol agreement among participating Inter-Guiana Games countries is expected to be inked shortly with a meeting planned to take place in the near future.According to the National Sport Commission’s Director Christopher Jones, Guyana and its neighbour Suriname stand ready to solidify and ink the new protocol agreement and are awaiting the third member, French Guyana, to signal its intention.
Though the countries have committed verbally to needing new protocols, they have been unable to ratify and put pen to paper for a new document to govern the multi-discipline event.
A meeting was scheduled for last week but had to be postponed on account of the French Guianese, who only completed the installation of a government in December of last year.
Jones, however, is optimistic that in the near future his kin directors across the three states will be able to meet to ratify these issues.
Recently, Jones in an exclusive interview with this newspaper said, “There are certain aspects of the Protocol that puts Guyana at a disadvantage.
For example there’s an aspect that speaks to participants being school-aged children being 19 and under and as you would know, Guyana’s academic year ends at 17-18 years old.”
He continued, “Suriname and French Guiana would be at an advantage because their athletes would be much older. That aspect of the Protocol I would want to see changed to accommodate our athletes that are currently in school.”
It is for this reason that Guyana sought the ratification of the Protocol.