MEMBERS of the executive committee of the Guyana Olympic Association, late Monday afternoon paid a courtesy call on the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) team that departed yesterday morning for the 21st Caribbean Juniors and Cadets Championships. The team features at the Under-18 level – Shemar Britton, Kyle Edghill, Elishaba Johnson and Miguel Wong while the lone U-15 player is Nicholas Romain with coach/manager Linden Johnson.
The GOA committee, which included President, Kalam Juman-Yassin, Secretary General Hector Edwards and Garfield Wiltshire Honorary Treasurer, also handed over a cheque to GTTA president Godfrey Munroe at the National Gymnasium.
The GOA boss, speaking briefly after the support, said that he was happy to support Guyana’s junior table tennis talents since he sees them as the future prospects to represent Guyana at Olympic Games.
He also stressed the importance of merging academia with sports and asked of the players to give of their best in representing the Golden Arrowhead.
Former Junior Table tennis champion and Caribbean squash champion Garfield Wiltshire and former cycling champion Hector Edwards also offered words of encouragement to the players
The GTTA president thanked the executive committee of the GOA for their intervention which was critical to making the team’s participation in the event a reality.
The 2016 Caribbean Junior and Cadet championship is scheduled for April 12 -18 2016 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
The championship will be used as the qualifier for the Inaugural ITTF Pan American Junior Table Tennis Championships scheduled for Vancouver, Canada in June 2016, where the top four teams from the Caribbean will join four teams from Central America and six teams from South America along with USA and Canada.
The association has commenced planning its activities on a 4-6-year cyclical basis aimed at mapping out a realistic and achievable pathway and sees these players as our next prospects to transition as possible representatives to Junior Olympic and Olympic Games and as senior representatives who will represent Guyana internationally in the future.
Play for Guyana starts today with the team events doubles singles.
The team will return on April 19..