- geography, other challenges cited for delays
PRESIDENT of the Guyana Table Tennis Association, Godfrey Munroe, says he has broken his silence on the long-awaited conclusion of the CNOOC Petroleum Guyana National Table Tennis Championships, saying it will conclude in July.
Speaking on the sidelines of an event yesterday in Georgetown, the GTTA boss said, “We didn’t get to conclude the final leg of it [CNOOC Petroleum Guyana National Table Tennis Championships], which was bringing all the schools to the national championship with the respective winner from each region to the nationals, but we have that scheduled for July, at the beginning of summer, the end of the school period.”
The mega event was completely organised by GTTA, headed by Godfrey Munroe, who also heads the Guyana Olympic Association.
The countrywide championship, which was launched and served off in December of 2024, was originally set to conclude in 2025 but, after being paused around September without explanation, never concluded.
“All the regional legs of the schools’ championship have been completed; we are quite happy about that. What we were able to do is crown individual champions in each one of the regions 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and Georgetown. As you know, for that championship, we had given the hinterland schools tables, and the plan was to go in and do some work with those schools.”
The ambitious, first-of-its-kind countrywide competition benefitted from the support of the Ministries of Education and Culture, Youth and Sport.
Part of the programme included the further decentralisation of table tennis in schools through the distribution of tables and other equipment to satellite schools.
The championship was primarily sponsored by CNOOC Petroleum Guyana to the value of 4.5 million Guyana dollars initially.
It featured competition in each region, with the winners of each region then taking part in a national playoff geared towards crowning the individual school’s team and singles champions in each category.
The GTTA has also, over the past two years, struggled to run their National Championship in a timely manner.
