Organizers of the upcoming annual schools nationals’ athletic championships are not banking on the completion of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports (MYCS) $455 million 50m Olympic-size swimming pool and have made alternative arrangements to have the swimming competition take place at the Castellani House pool.
This was disclosed yesterday by Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education (MoE), Pulandar Khandi at a press conference held at the Providence National Stadium.
Khandi and MoE Head of the Physical Education Department, Nicholas Fraser said that the 50m pool would have been used for the championships subject to its completion. Khandi noted that the organizers will not be “putting all of their eggs into one basket” where hosting the swimming competition at the 50m pool is concerned.
Questioned further by journalists Khandi declared that arrangements have been put in place for the swimming events to be held at the Castellani House Swimming Pool.
The 50m Olympic-size swimming pool is a brainchild of the MCYS, following persistent lobbying by members of the swimming fraternity who pointed out that they were at a disadvantage having to train in 25m and 25 yards swimming pools.
It is now nearly three years since construction began on the pool in January of 2008 and, after a few modifications to the original plan, numerous promised deadlines and a huge increase in the construction cost of the pool, Guyana still awaits the completion of the Olympic-size swimming pool. Minister of Sports, Dr Frank Anthony, recently promised that the pool would be finished in time to host the swimming aspect of the schools championships.
This was after an earlier “mid-September” deadline Anthony had indicated as being “a safe timeline for when we can be ready to open the facility.”
While lots of progress has been made and water is now in the pool, the environs of the facility are not in a state for immediate use and only the pump house is at a functional stage. At the outset the facility was expected to include a diving pool, an Olympic-size pool and a warm-up pool but, according to Dr. Anthony, this would have cost too much so they “went back to the drawing board” and revised the plan to include only the pool and the necessary supporting facilities. Efforts to contact Dr Anthony yesterday proved futile as this newspaper was told that he was not in office.
