The World Squash Federation (WSF) and local players are aggressively pursuing the notion of being recognised as an Olympic Sport by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the 2020 Olympic Games using social media to propagate the bid.
Chief executive of World Squash Andrew Shelley stated in a release that the worldwide squash fraternity needs to intensify their efforts and continue until the IOC makes a pronouncement on the matter. According to Shelley this is a critical phase for all the national fraternities and players to join in support of the sport’s bid to play at the world most prestigious sporting event.
A few years ago, squash had been in the running to be recognised as an Olympic Sport for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, but the IOC chose instead to recogniserugby sevens.
Now channelling their aspirations to the 2020 Games, of which the venue will be announced this September, World Squash is employing social media to make their 2020 bid go ‘viral’ as they in online jargon. Shelley stated that since it is now possible to recommend sports to the council, national fraternity need to do their part to make the sport grow and gain popularity.
Efforts in Guyana to make the sport more popular has already commenced physically and online. The GSA currently runs a schools development programme at the National Racquet Centre on Woolford Avenue. The national racquet centre is one of the only public squash facilities in the Caribbean and has already attracted new players to the game locally.
Several Guyanese players have already be promoting the 2020 bid for squash via social media. Late last year, a Facebook page named ‘Guyana Squash’ was created and has since highlighted many developments in the sport locally an internationally.The page highlighted the remarkable performances of Nicolette Fernandes a from the Women’s World Squash Open last December as well as Mary Fung-A-Fat who also competed in that tournament and Nyron Joseph who competed at the US Junior Squash Open and other tournaments in North America. The page was also endorsed by six-time sportswoman of the year Fernandes who is currently ranked number 32 in the world.National squash champion Alexander Arjoon said that social media has the phenomenal effect of stimulating interest in the game and is an excellent medium to help push the increase the sport’s popularity.
“With regards to the social media aspect I’m all for it. Most of my posts are about squash and we even have a Guyana squash group as you know. Most important, apart from bidding for the Olympics, we can use social media to just encourage people to get out and play and who knows, maybe they end up falling in love with it,” Arjoon said.
World is urging persons to like their two pages fb.com/WorldSquash and fb.com/ backthebid2020 to increase support for their 2020 Olympic bid.
Speaking about the bid Arjoon said “I think the bid for squash in the 2020 Olympics is an excellent idea!With the kind of exposure the Olympics brings squash can evolve into the sport all squash players have envisioned it to be.”
Arjoon who was recently named athlete of the week at Franklin and Marshall College in the USA said, “It’s time such a wonderful sport got a chance to show the world how entertaining it can be and I think this won’t only be an opportunity for players who want to make the Olympic team but more importantly it will be a great opportunity to develop squash as sport.”
