The Inter-Guiana Games are now scheduled to take place from October 21-23 in Paramaribo, Suriname, following a number of postponements.
The Tri-Nation event involving Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana which is contested among under-19 students attending any type of learning institution is normally held in May but was postponed for various reasons, ranging from students having to write CXC exams to the late release of Suriname’s budget.
The constant postponement resulted in a meeting being held among the three nations last month to discuss the way forward with the annual event.
It had been doubtful that the event would have been held in its regular three stages which included six sporting disciplines, namely Track and Field, Football, Cycling, Basketball, Swimming and Volleyball.
However, with the meeting out of the way, Director of Sport Neil Kumar has confirmed that the prestigious event will go ahead as one whole stage.
“Well the games will be held in October and all six sporting disciplines will be participated in at the event,” Kumar told Stabroek Sport via telephone.
Meanwhile the current National Schools Basketball Festival will provide a testing ground for basketball players to make the Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) national team, according to President of the Youth Basketball Guyana (YBG) Chris Bowman.
However, other sporting disciplines will have to determine when trials will be held to name their teams.
Meanwhile, President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Colin Boyce indicated to Stabroek Sport that his association is willing to hold their trials sometime next month once the necessary funding is provided by the National Sports Commission (NSC).
“Well we will have to have a meeting with NSC to look at the budget for the meet so we could finalize a date for the trials sometime in next month,” Boyce told Stabroek Sport via telephone.
Track and Field has been the most dominant sporting discipline for Guyana in the history of the IGG Games but this looked a bit shaky last year when the Guyanese females lost their part of the championship to their Surinamese counterparts, blemishing Guyana’s overall record of dominating the discipline.
