The Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) will, next year, stage two Caribbean championships back-to-back.
So said President of the Caribbean Table Tennis Federation (CRTTF) Guyana-born Teddy Matthews.
“For next year definitely we are going to have our two competitions in Guyana….
“We’ll be having the U15s and the U19s Caribbean TT championships right here. More than likely it will be from the 14th of March to the 21st of March then we’ll be having the senior championships from the 23rd of March to the 31st of March,” Matthews told Stabroek Sport in an exclusive interview recently.
“The U15s and U19s are qualifying competitions for the Pan American table tennis championships and the World championships at those levels and the senior championships are also qualifiers for the Pan Am table tennis championships and the World championships,” he declared.
“Other than that we will have a qualifier for the Centro Caribe Games which used to be the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games and also for the Pan American Games right here in Guyana.”
Also to be held in Guyana will be elections for the CRTTF.
Matthews has been at the helm of the body since 2016 and he was non-committal as to whether he will be seeking another term of office.
He did say however, that the pandemic has affected the CRTTF’s ability to function over the last three years.
“Other than we do have an elections next year when we come to Guyana to decide who will be on the executive of the CRTTF so that’s basically where we are.
“The impact of the pandemic was phenomenal because we had no competitions in 2020, we had no competitions in 2021. There were basically no training camps. There was no activity in 2020. In 2021, the ITTF reached out to us and we had virtual training camps for U12 players and that was basically it. Not much happened in those two years so it was a huge impact. “Other than that many players quit at all age groups. Many, many players in the various countries, just quit the game. Stopped playing completely so right now, most of the countries have a rebuilding process to get their players back on the table and competing,” said Matthews, who represented St Lucia at the Caribbean Table Tennis Championships and is the president of that country’s table tennis federation.
