President of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) K.A. Juman Yassin reacting to the news that the Guyana Government has decided to reopen the country’s airports to commercial flights which could pave the way for the athletes to compete abroad, has said the foregoing is certainly an option but noted that safety is the ultimate focus.
“Once all the conditions are there for safe travel to competitions, I wouldn’t have any difficulty with that,” the county’s top Olympic official told this publication during a brief telephone interview.
Yassin, however, guarded against being foolhardy amid the pandemic expressing the view that the safety of athletes from the association’s perspective is still the top priority.
“… I think it’s going to take a little while before that happens (athletes traveling amid the pandemic) because most of the competitions involve a lot of athletes but if it could be organized, I don’t see a difficulty with that once we feel that everything is in place for athletes and officials to be safe I would say that’s good.”
He added: “I would be happy to see things going back to normal but at the end of the day safety is the most important thing for us.”
Live sports have been on a worldwide hiatus for several months due to the ongoing pandemic but as the world adapts to a situation which is considered a new norm, sports officials and athletes are already working around the pandemic and are competing in tournaments outside of their country under strict measures.
Some of the more internationally recognised sports such as cricket, lawn tennis, basketball, and football have all found ways to pull off tournaments during the pandemic and with Guyana’s airports set to reopen, perhaps local athletes, as the GOA President pointed out, may consider attending a few international events.
