THE regional governing body for swimming PANAM Aquatics has tasked the local swimming body, GASA (Guyana Amateur Swimming Association) with several changes for the administration of the sport here.
According to reports, these mandates are set to improve transparency, fairness and responsiveness in order to be recognised by the umbrella body, the Guyana Olympic association and the National Sport Commission.
President of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association Yolema Philips says that PANAM Aquatics after several meetings with stakeholders locally have arrived at the way forward for the sport’s re-integration into the fold as a core sports.

She said that a general counsel meeting was convened on February 24 and the recommendations were adopted and will be acted upon in the coming days and weeks.
“The Guyana Olympic Association (GOA), in collaboration with PANAM Aquatics, has developed a list of recommendations, which was shared with the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) and subsequently circulated to all affiliated club members. During the GASA Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on February 24, 2025, a motion was introduced to adopt these recommendations. The motion was seconded and passed with no objections; the members present at the AGM were also informed that the executive body of GASA will begin implementing the recommendations starting February 25, 2025.”

The recommendations include establishing and publishing a calendar of domestic events that GASA intends to host, with a prospectus that clearly outlines deadlines for registration, competition rules, mandates, and all information about the event.
They were also encouraged to ensure that there are non-biased and nondiscriminatory policies and procedures in place for athlete selection and the selection criteria policy must be published on GASA’s website and/or circulated to all members to ensure a fair system of athlete selection to allow the best athletes to represent Guyana.

The recommendations also empower GASA to establish and implement a grievance procedure with defined de-escalation procedures that allow fair hearing of members’ concerns, immediately accept clubs as affiliates who previously met with GASA pending the constitutional requirements for membership as well as work with the clubs and the government to find a balanced and fair distribution of pool use for all member clubs.

In September last year, the National Sport Commission (NSC) stripped the swimming body of its core sport status following several attempts at interventions to have issues raised by people within the sport addressed.
The Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport had, in May 2024, after a stakeholder meeting, indicated that they will not offer any financial support towards the body due to what they termed as irregularities in the administration of the sport.

It further added that complaints from interested persons include biased selection, exclusion from competitive swimming, nepotism, and refusal to accept clubs as members of GASA which meet the requirements, unresponsiveness from the executive of GASA, heavy-handed and unfair treatment by GASA, unconstitutional actions and financial misconduct by the executive of GASA.

In a joint statement late last year the National Sports Commission (NSC) and the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) escalated the situation saying they no longer recognise GASA as a Sports body in good standing and will no longer engage with the current executive of GASA.
The situation reached a climax last year after well connected Guyanese born swimmer Delroy Tyrrell expressed frustration at being unable to switch allegiance from Trinidad and Tobago to representing Guyana.

It was further aggravated when swim clubs Dolphin and Trident were banned for one and two years respectively for reportedly disrupting an ongoing competition because of grievances with the GASA.