With Guyana capturing only five medals at the recently concluded Pre an Mini-cadet table tennis championship, held in Jamaica, national coach, Linden Johnson, said yesterday that he was not too elated with his side’s returns.
Guyana compounded their less than ideal showing by failing to capture a podium finish in the singles category of the tournament with Johnson hinting that his players were not mentally up to the challenge.
“I’m disappointed with the singles results,” Johnson told Stabroek Sport yesterday.
“Most of them [athletes] were defeated in the quarterfinals. Even Ninvalle [Kaysan] got defeated in the quarter finals.”
Asked why Guyana endured a less than ideal performance, Johnson said that his side did not show enough fight, adding that work needs to be done to particularly address future teams’ mental preparedness for upcoming tournaments.
“We need to build our fighting spirit, some more. a couple of players dropped early sets and never really fought to get themselves back in the game and when you look at the Dominican Republic who won, that was one their stronger areas, they showed fight,” Johnson said.
He proposed a solution where he called on players to take it upon themselves to put in the individual effort in addition to sessions they may have scheduled with him or any other technical personnel.
Johnson did, however, point out that his players will continue to work on improving their art from today, a day after they returned.
Guyana captured bronze in the under 11 boys and under 13 girls category while also taking bronze in the under 11 and 13 boys’ doubles. The lone silver medal came in under 11 boys’ doubles category.
