A recent $1M presentation by the National Sports Commission (NSC) to the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA), will aid Guyana’s participation at the Pan American Senior Table Tennis Championships.
The GTTA will send a six-member team to the event is set for Lima, Peru, from November 13-19.
Guyana’s women’s team qualified for the Pan American championships but the men’s team benefited from the withdrawal of Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
The players entered for the championships are Shemar Britton, Joel Alleyne, Miguel Wong and Christopher Franklin, (men) and Jody-Ann Blake, Natalie Cummings, Chelsea Edghill and Trenace Lowe (women).
Director of Sport, Steve Ninvalle, said “The NSC’s support stems from a request for support from the GTTA and the commission would’ve voted to extend a hand relating to assisting with a grant of $1M.”
Ninvalle pointed out that the NSC will continue to assist the country’s sports associations and athletes in their quest for development.
With the restart of competitions occurring globally in the sport and with world rankings becoming a major factor in determining qualification for key events given the COVID-19 pandemic, Godfrey Munroe, president of the GTTA, said participation in international events was even more important now.
“It has become critical that our association is able to have our players participate in key competitions and training camps as a means of having our players continue to gain the requisite exposure and preparation in view of positioning them to gain world ranking points.”
He added, “Further the Pan American championships will be used to select the teams for the World Table Tennis championships in Chengdu, China, in March of 2022, the teams for the Pan American Cup among other key competitions in addition to world ranking points being a key criterion in selecting participating teams for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.”
The GTT president stressed that with the change in the sport’s landscape, mostly because of COVID-19, it has therefore become absolutely critical that they attend these championships.
“It is imperative that Guyana attend these championships in order to have the team gain the necessary ranking points in order to stay ahead of key teams regionally so as to be able to gain qualification spots for Commonwealth Games, World Championships and maintain our trajectory,” he said.
