Fifteen sporting bodies received early Christmas and New Year’s tokens on Wednesday night when president of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA), K.A Juman-Yassin presented monetary gifts worth in excess of $4M to their representatives.
During the holiday social which was hosted at his Lamaha Gardens residence, Juman-Yassin said that the finance should be utilized solely for the development of young athletes.
“Our executives met and we decided that we would like to make financial contributions to associations for you to help in the development of your young and potential athletes because we need to look at the young people” said Juman-Yassin.
“All contributions are for the development of young athletes and for sports” the GOA head reiterated
Juman-Yassin added “Sports-wise we need to review what have we done and I think we can do much more, I do hope that next year much more can be done but what is really needed is for the respective executives of the associations to really get together and try to push for betterment.”
He continued “I know you are pushing and you say you don’t have facilities or the funding but at the end of the day we cannot give up, we need to charter a course and for us at the GOA, our first goal next year is the South American Games next year March in Chile followed by the Pan American Games in Glasgow, Scotland in July.
Juman-Yassin stated that “the GOA executive want to help” and that the associations “need to ensure that the Ministry of Sport knows what your plans are because once the associations are not doing that at the end of the day they will say we did not budget for it.”
“You may or may not get but at the end of the day you will be able to say that you put your best foot forward, most associations have not submitted their plans so I am asking as a resolution for the new year that you will send it to us and the ministry because we need to submit names of athletes who are eligible for scholarships and so on.”
The disciplines that received the cheques were amateur boxing, badminton, bodybuilding, cycling, track and field, rugby, netball, karate, swimming, weightlifting, taekwondo, table tennis, hockey, squash and volleyball.
President of the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA), Steve Ninvalle gave the vote of thanks on behalf of the associations and mentioned that the money presented is definitely a “shot in the arm” and will be used for its intended purpose.
