GOA optimistic of Pan Am Games medals

GOA’s President K. Juman Yassin (centre), General Secretary Hector Edwards (standing far left) and Administrative Secretary and Chef-de-Mission for the Pan American Games, Nalini McKoy (sitting far right) along with some of coaches and athletes who will represent Guyana in Peru.

The top brass of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) is optimistic of the nation’s representatives at the Pan American Games putting their best feet forward and perhaps even returning with medals from the event scheduled for Lima, Peru from July 26 to August 11.

During a press briefing yesterday at the GOA’s headquarters, president of the association, K Juman-Yassin stated: “I am hoping that our players will compete well. I am hoping for medals, but the important thing is for each athlete to do their best. It is for each athlete to be able to see in their mind that they could win, for each of them to picture themselves on the podium, unless they do that it is not going to happen.”

Juman-Yassin added, “It is only so much a coach can do, it is so much a National Association or the GOA can do; at the end of the day, a lot of the responsibility is on the athlete. Parallel to that, for that athlete to develop and be successful, that athlete needs to be exposed to good training facilities, good competition, and unless they have those things, they are running against the tide.”