GUYANA’s Director of Sport Steve Ninvalle and his Surinamese counterpart Gordon Tjouw Ngie Touw met recently for the first of several discussions, geared towards seeing the return of the Inter Guiana Games (IGG) this year.

Their discussion in the Dutch-speaking country’s speaking capital was held as a direct result of a promise made by Head-of-State, Dr Irfaan Ali, during a visit last year by his Suriname counterpart, President Chandrikapersad Santokhi.

The Inter-Guiana Games, according to President Ali, is part of the Guyana and Suriname ‘People to People’ partnership, which he said is “bringing our people together, in a safe space that they can share and appreciate each other.”

Bringing back the Inter Guiana Games, President Ali said, will also “bring back the Inter-Guiana Games cultural forum/platform that was started, so we can have sports, culture and technological exchanges as part of forging greater unity, trust and understanding of our people.”

The Inter-Guiana Games sees Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana, having exchanges in football, volleyball, basketball, cycling, swimming and track and field. Lately, chess and badminton were added to the list of events.

Catering to student-athletes at the U-20 level, the Inter-Guiana Games first took place in 1967.

Former National Football player, ‘QT’ Donald was sent to Suriname by former President Forbes Burnham to work with the Surinamese on Guyana’s behalf to outline the games that were formed as a means of fostering bilateral relations, through sports between the two countries.

Football (basketball started in 1972) was the first sport that was played between Guyana and Suriname at the Inter-Guiana Games. The two countries battled for the Forbes Burnham/Johan Pengel Trophy. Johan Adolf Pengel, 1967, served as Prime Minister of Suriname.