By Marlon Munroe
Guyana begins its quest today for the team title in the fourth annual IPF/NAPF Caribbean Islands Bench Press and Powerlifting Championships at the Princess Hotel, Providence, East Bank Demerara.

The competition will commence promptly at 11:00 today and tomorrow after the opening ceremony at 10:00 hours.

Moreover, many of the local lifters are going into the two-day tournament with their reputation already preceding them while the debutants will be looking to leave indelible marks on an international competition of this magnitude.

Further, President of the Guyana Amateur Powerlifting Federation (GAPF) Peter Green stated at a press briefing yesterday that many of the athletes will be competing against records. He pointed out that this will be the exposure that the local strongmen will need if they are to move up in the rankings in the Caribbean and the world.

General Secretary of the North American Powerlifting Federation (NAPF) and Committee Member of the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) Robert Keller also concurred that the local lifters are “phenomenal and they are starting to get a lot of recognition.”

Defending champions John ‘Big John’ Edwards and Randolph Morgan, along with Regional Open champion Mervyn ‘Spongy’ Moses had earlier expressed confidence in doing well.  Edwards is the current Caribbean and Regional record holder in the Squat (342kg) and Bench Press (227.5kg) events; Morgan, who was born on March 1, 1978, is ranked number 23 in the world and he is the current overall best lifter from last year.

Moses is ranked first, second and third in the Regional, Pan American and Caribbean listings respectively. On the other hand, Guyana will be fielding junior athlete Vijai Rahim, who will be attempting to break the world sub-junior record, and veteran Winston Stoby who won one of Guyana’s first gold medals in international competition.

Guyana will be  fielding a 16-man team against five countries but at the moment there is a question mark over Trinidad & Tobago’s presence at the championship.

It was reported that the team had encountered some financial difficulties and should that be ironed out they would arrive in Guyana late.

The other countries already in Guyana are USA, Puerto Rico, Cayman Islands and United States Virgin Island. Keller said that should T&T not turn up they will be charged a monetary fine for the country’s “poor planning”. He noted, however, that Guyana has always met its obligations.

“This is the first time something like this has happened. We have technical rules to prevent that and they (T&T) know what the consequences are going to be,” Keller explained.

On the other hand, Green said that since  they were many non-believers in the association’s ability  to pull off the tournament, he singled out the Sport Ministry for its support and belief in the GAPF. He pointed out that financing was also a problem and therefore he had to take some of his best athletes overseas to establish a base to show that the local association was capable of running such a high level championship.“I also had to convince the Guyanese public that we are viable as an organization worth investing in and I think we (GAPF) have reached that criterion.”  Green said Guyana took up the mantle of hosting the games since T&T had pulled out of hosting the event at the last minute so the biggest challenge was putting all the systems in place to have the final product. Keller acknowledged that the effort was a monumental one.

Dope Testing Keller said that it is required to test 10% of the athletes and their urine samples will be sent to the best laboratories in the world according to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He said that while testing can be randomly done, in most cases tests are done after the competition.  Guyana’s team reads: John Edwards, Randolph Morgan, Mervyn Moses, Richard Seymour, Winston Stoby, Bhojkumar Jagnarine, Farouk Abdool, Errol Henry, Wazeem Immamdeen, Anis Ade Thomas, Tariq Immamdeen, Vijai Rahim, Kelvin Lewis, Edwin Spencer, Karel Mars and Ryan Williams.

Coach: Wendell ‘Big Mac’ Mc Pherson and Assistant Coach Egbert Jackson.