By Iva Wharton
Cell phone giant Digicel yesterday announced its sponsorship of the Goodwill Swimming Championship which commences tomorrow at the National Aquatic Centre.
Digicel’s Sponsorship Manager Gavin Hope said that this was the first time that the company was sponsoring any swimming championships locally.
“We will continue to display and show our support for swimming and the development of sports in general. We are pleased to be on board. When we first received the request we discussed it and thought it was good for the development of the game,” Hope told the media yesterday.
According to the former top sprinter, the company was well aware that Guyana was able to field two swimmers at the just concluded 2012 London Olympics.
“There is more work to do and we want to contribute to the development of the sport and also to the young men and women,” said Hope.
In expressing gratitude Dee George, Secretary to the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) said that the association was pleased to have Digicel on board as a partner as it will assist in the development of the sport.
On the competition, George said that the teams: Barbados, Trinidad and Suriname will arrive in today.
She disclosed that with the exception of Trinidad the three other teams Barbados, Suriname and host Guyana will not be fielding the full complement of swimmers.
“Full complement will be Trinidad only; when we say full complement we mean 40 swimmers and eight officials. Suriname who usually would have that only has 36 swimmers, Barbados 31 and Guyana 27 at this point,” George said.
Questioned on the readiness of the facilities for the competition tomorrow, George said that the starting blocks have been relocated to accommodate the required 25 metres for the Goodwill Championships.
“Because the pool is still under warranty by the actual contractor of Myrtha Pools we had to have that person come in and do that shift. And what we mean by that is that the blocks had to be removed from the 50 metre configuration to the 25 metre configuration and they have done that successfully since last week Thursday,” she said.
