By Emmerson Campbell
Minister of Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony has challenged the local swimming team to accomplish their personal best at the three-day Goodwill Swimming Championships which commences here today at 12:30hrs.
“Once you are able to accomplish that personal best, you will do us all proud but you first have to get that inward motivation to do your best.
If you don’t have that motivation, we can tell you, it will change that dynamics when you get into the pool. You have to believe that you can do it and I’m sure if you have that confidence when you get into that pool you will do extremely well.”
Those were some of the motivational remarks by Minister Anthony to the local when he spoke to the Guyana swimming team which paid him a courtesy call yesterday at his office on Main Street.
The locals along with swimmers from neighbouring Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados will take part in this year’s 18th annual three-day Goodwill Swimming Championships at the National Aquatic Centre at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, starting today.
The minister expressed delight at the number of participants and urged them to make themselves as well as Guyana proud by winning gold medals or finishing in podium positions.
Said Anthony: “I am very pleased that we have so many of you participating at different age groups and you should not be daunted by the competition – you should see it as an opportunity to do yourself and your country proud.”
He added: “I am expecting that you do extremely well, we want to see these medals, we know the competition from the other countries will be fierce but there is nothing stopping you and you have home advantage and we want to make use of that.”
Anthony also mentioned that the championships here is a historical one as the first step in hosting future swimming events of that nature.
Team captains Omari Dunn and Soroya Simmons assured the minister that the swimmers from the Land of Many Waters will do their best to make the country proud.
Said Dunn: “Our objective is to go out there and put our best foot forward and have a medal haul of a lot of gold medals and make our country proud.”
This was echoed by Simmons: “As Omari said we are heading into the competition to do our best and hoping that everything pays off. We are looking for as many gold medals we can bring in if not gold, silver and bronze. We are hosting it in Guyana and we want to hear our anthem play as many times as possible.”
Team Manager Jean LaRose thanked the minister for accommodating the team and reiterated that the swimmers will do their best to make Guyana proud.
Brief congratulatory remarks were made by Permanent Secretary Alfred King and Minister Anthony to London Olympian Britany Van Lange, who will be one of the big names at the meet.
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