The Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) on Friday last hosted a virtual “coaches and administrative” forum geared at improving the sport locally, particularly as it relates to coaching.
The session was conducted by Sydney Christophe, a 14 times national champion and a former Caribbean men’s singles champion.
Christophe is now an International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) accredited level three coach and the director of an American youth table tennis organisation.
His session, according to president of the GTTA, Godfrey Munroe, attracted a number of keen participants including former national player and now Assistant Director of Sports, Melissa Down-Richardson, along with ITTF certified Coach Coordinator Shavin Greene, national Junior Coach Linden Johnson, and other technical officials from Linden, Berbice, and Bartica.
“The session was very informative and interactive… Participants brought new ideas to the floor in terms of the approaches, strategies and policies that they believe should be adopted to help enhance the coaching structure in Guyana. The programme ran for one hour, 45 minutes,” Munroe told Stabroek Sport.
The gist behind the initiative, Munroe explained, was the ongoing global pandemic which has widely affected live sports.
“As a national association, given the uncertainty in predicting COVID-19, we believe that the downtime provided us with the opportunity to work on a few key projects for which the executive committee would not have had the time to work on in a normal environment,” he explained.
The central objective of the initiative was aimed at reviewing the coaching structure in Guyana with the aim of crafting ideas on how the association can provide a more efficient approach to coaching in the future.
