By Daniel Haynes

“WE are ready as a team,” were the words of a confident Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) president Nigel Hinds yesterday at the Giftland Mall. Hinds was speaking at the male and female Guyana Junior U-16 Caribbean Basketball Confederation(CBC) Championships launch with the coaches Lugard Mohan and Ann Gordon.
Present at the launch was Director of Sport Christopher Jones and Youth Basketball Guyana (YBG) coordinator Chris Bowman. Also in attendance were Ministry of Education Head of Department of Physical Education Nicholas Fraser and the local organising committee members.
Hinds is optimistic ahead of the games and spoke to members about the increased support of youth development by the Government of Guyana.
“Times have changed and within this new climate, we are fresh off of the Golden Jubilee celebrations, and the hosting of the CBC games is a great step for Guyana.”
Hinds also stated that the renovation done at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall was not just for the basketball fraternity, but for other disciplines also.
Also commenting was Christopher Jones, who stated that the Sports Hall was now of a standard that could host any regional or international games.
“We at the National Sports Commission are committed to providing sporting facilities not just in Georgetown, but across Guyana.”
Jones then congratulated Hinds on winning the bid for the CBC championships before adding that as a result, Guyana has not created history once but twice with the CBC hosting and the recently completed Aliann Pompey International Invitational.
Nicholas Fraser was of the opinion that having the games come to Guyana was a huge plus since students would be able to write the sport of basketball for Physical Education at CXC.
“We see students who don’t have actual exposure to basketball who just know the sport in examination settings and having them exposed to how the game should be played increases the success rate for CXC passes.”
Also chiming in was Bowman and coach Ann Gordon, who both spoke about the level of preparedness going into the competition being different than the Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) preparation.
According to Bowman, “With this tournament we are geared towards progression where, with the IGG teams we had prepared them to win. It was a one-shot and they were that good.”
He added that the federation spared no expense in getting the players prepared and alluded to the fact that at the IGG level this had not been done before.

The CBC games begin on Sunday July 3 with four games. At 13:00hrs Antigua & Barbuda will take on The Bahamas, and Barbados will come up against the British Virgin Islands at 15:15hrs. Group B will see Jamaica taking on Suriname at 17:30hrs and host Guyana wrapping up against Aruba at 20:30hrs.