Caribbean U11 champion Kaysan Ninvalle added another medal to his collection after copping bronze at the U11 World Hopes Latin American Table Tennis selection and training camp in Lima, Peru, recently.
Ninvalle finished third from 17 competitors drawn from nine national associations in the Latin Table Tennis Union at the October 18-23 camp.
Players from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago participated in seven days of intense training and two days of competition.
International Table-Tennis Federation (ITTF) and workshop head coach Eva Jeler of Germany along with assistant Brazil Lincoln Yasuda of Brazil were responsible for sharpening the skills of the young tennis Players.
“These young players have a lot of talent, a natural talent; they need to be much better technically. The focus of the training has to be on basic techniques. If the foundations of a house are not strong, you will never have a big and safe house,” said Jeler.
According to a press release from the Guyana Table Tennis Association Ninvalle nearly missed out on a medal since his win/loss ratio was incorrectly tabulated.
However, national coach Linden Johnson, who accompanied the young player recognized the discrepancy and the matter was corrected.
An apology was also issued by Latin America Table Tennis Union (LATTU) President and former Caribbean men’s singles champion Juan Vila.
According to the release, Coach Johnson indicated that the training camp was deep and augured well for Ninvalle in the future as the youngster held his own against the best players in the region. He indicated that the ITTF experts recommended a specific training regimen for him, which he would be seeking to share and implement with Ninvalle and the other young talents.
Johnson said the training regimen used was not different from the ones used in Guyana but had specific emphasis on improving the players’ technical proficiency, movement, stroke production, fitness and knowledge of the participants
He also said that Vila has indicated that LATTU will be seeking to implement similar types of training camps with ITTF expert coaches for Caribbean players before the commencement of competitions to help advance the competitiveness of the players in the Caribbean region.
Ninvalle, the first cadet player from Guyana to be selected for the World Hopes programme, said the experience was a great one for him and the training was quiet tough, testing his fitness and despite a knee injury sustained during practice he learnt a lot and is committed to working even harder at improving technical and tactical elements of his game.
