POWER Producers and Distributors Incorporated (PPDI) provided great impetus to Guyana’s hosting of the 61st Caribbean Senior Caribbean Table Tennis championships and Pan American Games qualification events, scheduled for March 24-31 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, when they presented a cheque for an undisclosed sum to the association’s treasurer Deirdre Edghill.

The simple but significant presentation was made by Deputy Chief Executive Officer Administration and Human Resources’ Gary Hall at the company’s Water Street location and, according to Chief Executive Officer of PPDI Dr Arron Fraser, the entity sees its contribution as its corporate mandate.

The company has noted the sport’s tradition of success at the regional and international levels, in addition to its gradual improvement and attempts at implementing key projects to place the sport in a more sustainable competitive standing, domestically and internationally, and was therefore happy to support.

Dr Fraser indicated that based on his knowledge of the sport he believes that the hosting of these games – while advertising, promoting and developing Guyana’s tourism can significantly elevate, propel and position the prospects and profile of Guyana, as a table tennis nation – will provide the platform and environment for our players to showcase their talents and our citizens as well as students to witness high class table tennis.

Guyana will host the 61st Senior Caribbean Table Tennis Championships, designated by the International Table Tennis Federation and Latin American Table Tennis Union as the qualification events for 2019 Pan Am Cup scheduled for October 2019 in Puerto Rico and 2019 Pan American Games scheduled for July-August 2019 in Lima Peru.

The qualification for the Pan Am Cup, which is the qualifier for World Team Championships 2020, will see one male and four female teams from the Caribbean region qualify, while the Pan Am Games qualification for Caribbean teams will see one male and one female team from the region qualify for the Pan American Games.

This is the first time Guyana is tasked with hosting a Pan American Games qualification event and will see teams from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica Barbados St Vincent, St Kitts, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Dominican Republic, St Lucia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Suriname, French Guiana, and Haiti who have already confirmed their participation.
As a result over 180 of the region’s best table tennis athletes and officials will come to Guyana to participate in this prestigious event.

These events kick-start the 2020 Olympic qualification pathway where we believe our men’s team will be very competitive and the women’s team truly have great prospects at qualifying, with Dominican Republic being our main competitors.

Guyana has had a rich tradition of regional table tennis success at the Caribbean championships, where in the 2018 edition held in Jamaica the country’s women and male teams secured several medals.

Trenace Lowe and Christopher Franklin secured bronze in the singles, and the men and women secured silver in the team events. Chelsea Edghill and Shemar Britton won gold in the Under-21 female and male categories, among other successes.