It is much too early to start singing praises of the Commissioner of Police Henry Greene for the work he has done for table tennis but certainly he deserves at the very least, a pat on the back.
It is no secret that were it not for Greene’s intervention, the Guyana team would not have been able to attend this year’s Central American and Caribbean Games where they performed creditably. He has also doled out considerable sums of money to players rewarding them for their achievements and has also assisted with the purchase of uniforms and such like.
That said, the recent press release from the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) was heartening in two respects.
The first was the announcement that trials will be a regular fixture for those seeking selection on the various representative national teams.
The second was the resuscitation of the table tennis selection panel although in our opinion there are some persons who should not have been on the panel.
These two developments give rise to some optimism to players that after two years of relative inactivity under the previous administration, there might be some light at the end of the long, dark tunnel.
Greene’s wish, that he wants the sport to return to the glory days of the Errol Caetanos and the George Braithwaites, is not altogether far fetched although not easily achievable.
It is not that the local players do not have the talent.
They do!
It is just that that talent is wasted here by a system which frustrates and stymies the ability of the athletes to achieve their true potential.
A case in point, Guyana’s national men’s singles champion Godfrey Munroe won the inaugural Caribbean Grand Prix table tennis tournament held in 1991 in St Lucia beating Barbadian Robert Roberts in the final.
Fast forward to the year 2010 and you will find that Roberts has gone on not only to win the Caribbean men’s singles crown on more than one occasion, but he has reached the finals at least twice.
Munroe, though he has performed above expectations at regional and other international tournaments, has not enjoyed such successes.
Why?
Because, apart from local tournaments, there are no avenues for a budding table tennis player to go abroad for training and competition as has been the case with Roberts.
The Barbadian has had the benefit of training stints in England (Grove Table tennis Club) with the assistance of the Barbados Table tennis Association and the Barbados government which also facilitated a stint in China for another former Caribbean champion Kibbibi Moseley to mention a few.
Compare that with Guyana. No table tennis player has left this country on a government scholarship under the previous People’s National Congress administration and, although there was once talk of a scholarship to China for former Caribbean men’s singles champion Sydney Christophe, nothing of the sort ever materialized.
Under the PPP/C government however, two persons were selected to go to China and did.
One might ask why was not a player chosen.
Well let’s just say that there is more need for transparency by sporting associations when it comes to such matters.
The GTTA release has noted that there is a lack of a structured training programme by teams preparing for international competitions stating that it is in the process of formulating such a programme. It also mentioned plans for the institutional strengthening of the association.
All those plans are laudable and achievable with the right personnel but sport in Guyana (and table tennis is no exception) is riddled with persons who serve on associations for their personal benefit or the benefit of their children and some of them cannot by any stretch be impartial.
Therein lies the challenge for the GTTA which is how to weed out those executive members and outsiders, who are seeking to influence and are manipulating the process for their own benefit.
It has been a promising start by the Greene administration and there seems to be a genuine desire by some executive members to propel the sport forward.
But the administration must beware of those who are nothing but wolves in sheep’s clothing.
