Former Caribbean men’s singles table tennis champion Sydney Christophe on Tuesday paid a courtesy call on Director of Sport Steve Ninvalle.
Christophe, a former president of the Guyana Table Tennis Association, currently resides in the United States of America and is an ITTF Level Three coach.
The two sports officials agreed to collaborate on a number of initiatives aimed at the development of the sport in the schools and the communities.
Christophe said that the ultimate vision is to create a broader base of players and increase the visibility of the sport especially in the outlying areas.
Christophe, who is accompanied by his brother Mike, himself a former national champion, said that they will stage a two-person team tournament this weekend.
The tournament will be held at the National Gymnasium on Sunday and monetary prizes and trophies will be at stake.
The Christophes are members of an overseas-based group of players which also includes former national champion Andrew Gorsira, Souvenir Ramdehol, Lester Cummings, Paul David, Trenace Lowe, Diane Chance and Lester Cummings, that have been assisting locals players with equipment and suchlike.
According to Christophe the group has been encouraged by the recent performances of the national teams at the recent Commonwealth Games in England.
“We hope that by assisting that we can help them reach their goals of becoming among the best teams in the Caribbean and Latin American,” said Christophe.
“This tournament this weekend is the first step in what we hope to achieve in terms of tournaments, training camps for players and a structured coaching programme, etc.,. We recognize that there’s a need for a lot of coaches to implement the programmes we, and the NSC, plan to implement.
Ninvalle said it was really great to see Christophe with whom he had a great working relationship when he was a journalist.
“I consider him to be one of the best racquet wielders to come out of Guyana and it’s good to know that he is one of the few who have plans to give back to the sport and to the country that he is from.
It is really heartwarming to know that he came to the ministry asking what he could do to assist. Usually it’s the other way around people come asking what we can do for them he is asking what he can do not only for the development of table tennis but sports on the whole. This is very pleasing to me as the Director of Sport that he has reached out and we will be working in close collaboration from here on.”
