Director of Sports Christopher Jones yesterday said that this year’s National Sports Commission’s (NSC) Summer Camp has laid a solid foundation for making the event grander come next year.
Roughly 700 students from across Guyana assembled at Durban Park last Friday during the camp’s closing ceremony.
Disciplines such as swimming, which was held at the National Aquatic Centre and the Colgrain Swimming Pool, table tennis facilitated by national coach Linden Johnson at the National Gymnasium and other popular sports like cricket, football and boxing were a part of the camp’s programme.
Prior the commencement of the camp’s closing ceremony, Stabroek Sport caught up with Jones who was seemingly happy that the entire endeavour was a tremendous success and who was certain that this year had set the tone for an even bigger camp come next summer.
“This is the first step in making it a larger one because last year when I got into office I saw the programme that was there before, which essentially catered for 300 the most in the various disciplines at the facilities we have.
“We would set aside since last year to ensure we have a larger number of participants in this year’s summer programme, so at all our facilities we would have asked the coaches to double their numbers. So what we have now is a total of 800 participants.”
Jones said that he was optimistic that next year’s camp will have a greater effect on the sporting community, adding that while this year’s camp focused primarily on the youths in Georgetown, the government was keenon providing financial assistance to those from the outer regions to facilitate similar camps for the persons in their areas.
Regarding the response from the attendees, Jones noted that during the build up to the camp, a lot of parents began to inquire about the venture which resulted in large numbers of youths coming out to support the various sports disciplines.
He confirmed that numerous requests to utilize the D’urban Park facility which falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of State have been made.
“This year when the NSC launched the “50 Shades of Games” it was with the intention of having a combination of novelty games which will be held at D’urban Park before 2016 and we are encouraging persons from all over Guyana to come out and support, he declared.
