Olympian, Aleka Persaud, who has her sights set on qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, will now have the support of the National Sports Commission (NSC) to help make her dreams of competing at another Olympics a reality.
The 15-year-old swimmer became the country’s youngest-ever Olympian when she qualified and competed at the games of the 32nd Olympiad in Tokyo, Japan.
Persaud didn’t just participate at the Olympics in Tokyo; her time of 27.76 seconds in the Women’s 50 metres freestyle was also a National record.
She finished second in her heat and while the time wasn’t fast enough to see her through the semi-finals in Tokyo, the Guyanese swimming prodigy showed signs that with the right support, she can be a force to reckon with.
Upon her return to Guyana, Persaud, along with her Coach Sean Baksh, spoke profoundly of the support needed to advance the swimmer’s ability to compete with the best in the world.
Those calls did not fall on deaf ears. Persaud met with Director of Sport, Steve Ninvalle and NSC Chairman Kashif Muhammad, in the company of her coach and president of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA), Dwayne Scott recently.
“We understand that she’s maybe the best that came out of Guyana for some time and we would want to make sure that this is not a ‘one stop’ whereby we support, but that we continue to support her over the years towards the 2024 Olympics,” Ninvalle said.
Coming out of the meeting, Ninvalle disclosed that the NSC will start with Persaud’s preparation for the Junior Pan Am Games in Cali, Colombia later this year.
The Director of Sport pointed out that a detailed plan was presented to the NSC, where a commitment was made which will see the commission investing in Persaud’s future.
“Yes, we would want other athletes to come forward if we have a proposal that we can study, the NSC will do that and where we find justified, then we would make sure that the support is forthcoming,” he said.
“We have just started, there’s a lot more work for us to do, but we want to make sure that whatever we do, we can justify why we have been supporting. It is not by one person. We have a team of people working; we’re pooling our ideas and we’re also listening to the Associations,” Ninvalle added.
The Director of Sport is not keen on paying attention to how things used to be with regards to how sport was administered from the level of the commission.
“We’re moving forward and we will encourage each and every association to have a discussion with us. It doesn’t mean that we will have to reach out to each and every association. The associations can reach out to us too; it must be a 50-50 way.”
