“I GOT involved in sports because I love competition and I really enjoy sports,” says 18-year-old Shemar Britton, an aspiring lawyer and accomplished junior table tennis player.
Though he is most well-known for his racquet skills. Britton is multitalented in the sports area and he has also dabbled in several other sports, but mostly at the school level.He has represented the North Georgetown District at Nationals several times in athletics, and played cricket for the Under-15 and Under-19 teams of his alma mater Queen’s College.
At Bishops’ High, where he’s currently undergoing his Sixth Form studies, he has even captained the football team. But even with his involvement in so many other sports, table tennis has always stood above the rest.
“I got started in track from about the age of 6 but traded in the spikes for my racquet by age 10. Table tennis is my passion,” the four-time table tennis Caribbean Championship medallist recalled.
Britton takes pride in the level of discipline that the sport brings out in him.
“The discipline to training I’ve learned from table tennis really helps me in all areas of my life,” he said. Like many other young ones in sports he too wants to see more done for the Guyanese sports industry, particularly table tennis. He wants to see sports truly taken serious at a national level.

“I think table tennis and sports in Guyana, are improving but we’ve still got a very far way to go before Guyana can truly start to make an impact on the world stage. This can only be done when the general public of Guyana starts seeing sports as more than just a pastime.
Back at QC Shemar was credited with rebuilding the table tennis club there. On the table tennis front Shemar has excelled both at the local and regional level – something he recounts with pride.
“The most memorable part of my sports life was becoming the first Guyanese to win a men’s silver bowl in Trinidad and Tobago,” Britton recalled.
In 2012 his proficiency in the sport was enough to earn him the Junior Sportsman-of-the-Year runner-up award for that year.
Britton and his skills are well respected in Guyana’s table tennis fraternity.
“He’s a talented young person. He plays a smart game, he thinks a lot, and he’s a very strong player” was how national table tennis coach, Linden Johnson sees Britton.
The humble Britton credits his loving network of supportive friends and family.
“None of the things I’ve achieved would have been possible without my parents, Dawn and Basil Britton, my coaches Idi Lewis and Christopher Franklin, and a great bunch of friends – Akil Johnson, Michael de Costa, Jamaal Skeete, Michael Williams, Shamal Beaton and Hannibal Gaskin,” he said.