DESPITE Guyana only landing one medal, won in boxing, at the recently concluded Commonwealth Youth Games, the other Guyanese participants who did not medal also attained various levels of accomplishments at the event.
Notwithstanding not medaling, other athletes were able to achieve new personal best times, and reportedly, for the first time at an international event Guyana had two female athletes in a finals, while other performances saw Guyanese participants being approached for scholarship opportunities.

This was related Friday at a press briefing held at Olympic House, where the coaches of the varying represented sporting disciplines spoke of the respective athletes achievements. The presser was chaired by the contingent’s Chef-de-Mission, Karen Pilgrim.
Guyana was represented in four of the nine sporting disciplines contested at this year’s Games, which was held in The Bahamas from July 18 – 23. With five participants, athletics had the biggest number of athletes. There were also two swimmers, two boxers and a judoka, representing Guyana.

In another case of Guyanese boxers standing out, young pugilist Keevin Allicock was the team’s only medalist, landing silver in the boys’ flyweight (52kg) division. Coach for the boxing team, Sebert Blake, used this recent win as a platform to once again throw out an appeal for support for young athletes.
Blake noted that Allicock’s win was actually a result of returns on an investment, as an entity had recently began supporting young Allicock.

“One of the supporters of Keevin Allicock invested in food and accommodation and everything that he needed. Today we’re able to achieve this medal. So if we as a country invest in these athletes, so that they don’t have to study where their next meal is coming from or where they are going to rest their head, and can really focus on the game itself, I think we can achieve that elusive gold medal, whether in boxing or something else,” Blake said.

As the other coaches outlined what their teams achieved, athletic coach Julian Edmonds pointed out that while that sport had no medal, the athletes performed well. In particular, sprinter Onasha Rogers achieved a new personal best in the Girls’ 200m, with a time of 24.33 seconds.

Rogers was also fourth in the 100m, where both herself and Kenisha Phillips made it into the finals, after getting pass the heats and semifinals round.
The girls had to contest all the 100m races on the same day, and this eventually proved to be too much for Phillips who suffered a hamstring injury and had to pull out of the 200m.
“This is the first time in the history of athletics in Guyana that at a major event, we had two females in the 100m finals, which is great. Canada would have been the only other country that had two finalist in the event. It means good for Guyana, it shows that sprinting in Guyana is definitely on the rise. All in all I think the athletic team did their best,” Edmonds opined.

He pointed out that Rogers’ performance also saw her being approached by a number of scouts, offering scholarships. However, Rogers is already in the process of taking up a scholarship at Monroe College in the USA.

“[Buchanan] showed improvement. This is the second [international] outing for him, last time he went to Azerbaijan [ at the Islamic Solidarity Games], and he didn’t do so well but this time he showed some improvement.
At the present moment in the Bahamas, they’re offering judo scholarships, and because of our performance they offered us four scholarships to 4 judokas. So judo is going somewhere in Guyana,” Archer said.

In swimming, each of the swimmers were able to achieve at least one new personal best in their events. Daniel Scott achieved a new PB in the boys’ 200m freestyle where he clocked 2:09.90s, while Kenita Mahaica had a new PB in the 50m backstroke, where she clocked 34.23 seconds.