A GoFundMe page set up by three of the region’s brightest table tennis stars, has brought into focus one again the issue of Elite Athletes funding in Guyana.
Aaron Wilson of Trinidad and Tobago Tyrese Knight of Barbados and Guyana’s Shemar Britton are aspiring to participate in the inaugural Puerto Rico Table Tennis Open championships next month.
The Puerto Rico Butterfly Open TT 4 star tournament will be held from April 8-10 at the Puerto Rico Convention Centre in San Juan, and will see more than 300 competitors from more than 80 registered teams competing.
According to reports, nearly 100 tables will be in use in the first edition of the USATT-sanctioned event where points will be awarded for ranking tournaments in the United States.
Additionally, the first prize in Division One is US$7,5000 which makes it one of the more if not the most lucrative team tournaments to be held regionally.
The losing finalist will receive US$3000 with the semi-finalists receiving US$1200 and the quarterfinalists US$500.
According to the Caribbean TT Group website, the three players, Wilson, Knight and Britton have registered to play as one team, a Caribbean All Stars.
The fact that three of the region’s youngest TT stars have to seek funding on their own to participate in an international competition does certainly raise some eyebrows.
An athlete’s job is to go out and compete not to waste valuable training hours seeking sponsorship to attend competitions.
While not sure what the situation is with respect to Trinidad and Barbados, in Guyana, the nation’s top athletes continue to be affected by the sponsorship bugbear.
In the past sports teams as well have individual athletes had resorted to begging assistance from motorists at Traffic Stops with buckets and sometimes donation sheets in hand.
Additionally some athletes’ work places have been solicited to fund their participation at international competitions.
Most times, the brunt of paying for the athlete especially if the athlete is a junior or juvenile athlete, rests with parents who make tremendous sacrifices just to ensure that the talent of their sons and daughters are not left to blush unseen.
In fact, last year, Guyana’s latest Olympian Chelsea Edghill went a great lengths to detail her parents’ financial contribution to her development.
“Leading up to preparing for the games [and] not being sponsored for whatever reason and this is before the pandemic. Not being able to garner sponsors to compete at the highest levels, to compete at training camps,” Edghill had said at a press conference.
She had however, mentioned that the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) and the Guyana Olympic Association had facilitated her getting an International Olympic Committee scholarship and sponsorship from the Continental Group of Companies in the past, but she emphasised that it was her parents’ financial support which really brought stability.
Last year Edghill trained and stayed in Portugal, where she played semi- professionally.
“Throughout my preparation and throughout my career, the majority of the onus was on my parents. They funded almost all of my trips; they funded my training, my travel, and everything that I would ever want in the sport,” Edghill had said then.
“I don’t represent myself when I go abroad, I represent Guyana and I don’t think it is fair they [her parents] continue to fund the brunt of my travels and me representing Guyana,” said Edghill.
Former Guyana 400 and 800m athlete Marian Burnett had also in the past spoken out about the lack of sponsorship.
According to Burnett who represented Guyana from 1987 to 2010 she had done so without getting a sponsor.
“Basically I was overseas running from since `87 to now and I still haven’t gotten a sponsor,” she had said.
“I am doing this for my country, but I have to do it on my own. I don’t get any sort of assistance from Guyana – the AAG, the GOA nothing,” she had told Stabroek Sport in an exclusive interview.
“I’m killing myself to represent Guyana and it’s like all I get is `thank you very much’ and that’s it. I don’t understand it. They just want you to run, run, run like a donkey and they don’t even call you to find out how you’re doing. Come on! That’s ridiculous,” Burnett had said.
Earlier this year some $1.5B was allocated for sports in the annual budget, representing the largest ever allocation for youth, sports and culture ever.
But while most of the sports associations/federations applauded the move by the government, it must be noted that there seems to be no provision in the budget for elite athletes and while there is not an annual subvention from government to the sports associations/federations to assist them to carry out their functions, some $618m is to go towards the staging of tournaments by the ministry such as the annual Youth Week competitions and to support sports associations.
From that amount some $320m is to be spent on the training of athletes and coaches as part of the sports academy which continues to be rolled out for the 12 core sports.
Most of the money, however, seems to be earmarked for infrastructure with $915m allocated for the transformation of community grounds into State–of-the-Art facilities in Regions Two, Six and 10, the laying synthetic tracks in regions Six and 10 and installing lights to the community grounds in need.
However, funding for individuals and even national teams continue to be an issue and perhaps the time has come for the government to assist or pay the airfare for national teams representing this country for as Burnett and Edghill have said, when they go abroad they represent this country, not themselves, and certainly not their parents.
Britton might be reluctant to ask for assistance from passing motorists, hence the GoFundMe page, but it is high time that athletes representing this country, get an ease from having to beg for funding to represent this land of their birth.
