President of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) K.A. Juman Yassin has given the assurance that the Olympic body has been keeping local associations on their toes during the ongoing pandemic.
“We have been involved in organising a lot of virtual seminars through the Pan American Sports Organisation for coaches and athletes,” Yassin told this publication.
He explained that the sessions are organised weekly and are quite beneficial during this period of inactiveness.
The GOA, in August, reported that eight prominent Guyanese sport officials were set to participate in an online athlete development programme which was aimed at bolstering the long-term development of sports here.
The GOA had received an invitation from the Pan Am Sports Office to participate in a Webinar on the Long- Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model.
Pan Am Sports has reached an agreement with Sport for Life from Canada to share their knowledge and programmes with all the NOC’s through their new webinar educational series on Zoom and the Pan Am Sports Channel.
The presentations on the LTAD model is being held over an eight-week period with two hours every week which began on September 2, 2020.
Those identified from Guyana are David Fernandes who is the President of the Guyana Squash Association, Terrence Poole (Boxing), Shavin Green (Table Tennis), Shyka Gonsalves (Swimming), Roger Peroune (Karate), Kenisha Headley (Athletics), Theodore Henry and Nicholas Fraser.
Meanwhile, looking beyond the pandemic, the GOA president further disclosed that the body is willing to lend support to associations.
“Whenever associations are ready to start up, we will provide funding for them so that they can sanitize and that sort of thing but everything is really on a slow path because of the COVID and there is nothing we could do about that; it’s the reality of the time we are living in,” he added.
