The Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) regrettably announced yesterday the cancellation of its flagship National Senior and Youth and Junior Championships for this year.
The announcement was made yesterday by the association’s brass during a press briefing at the National Racquet Centre.
The lack of an appropriate venue and scheduling conflicts forced the body to pull the plug on the event.
According to the AAG, the continuation of work at the National Track and Field Centre at Edinburg forced the AAG to look into other alternatives, venue wise.
The National Stadium at Providence was presented as another option but the fact that the venue can only accommodate a 300m track posed additional issues.
Said President of the LOC, Tyron Smith, “Due to the unavailability of the Centre, this is mainly because some works are presently being done with the re-laying of the track, we were unable to run off this competition. We were given assurances that the track would be completed by late July. We rescheduled again for August but works are still not completed.”
The AAG then turned its attention to the Police Progressive Youth Club Ground at Eve Leary but other hurdles arose.
“We did an inspection last Friday, myself and the other members of the LOC, which included the technical delegate Mr. Mark Scott and we observed that only 3 lanes were up to standard. At that time the ground was soggy, there was some fire burnt on some parts of the track. So, the ground could not have been prepared in a timely manner for us to host the competition this weekend,”
Meanwhile, the new track at Linden was ruled out, owing to its lack of certification from governing body, World Athletics and the lack of supporting facilities, which are currently being built.
Quizzed about how the initial postponement of the meet in July and further cancellation of the August 11- 13 combined meet may have affected athletes, Smith affirmed that there was no damage done.
“Although we were not able to hold this meet, some of our athletes would have been given exposure in other meets around the Caribbean.
We had some athletes compete in Trinidad last week, we had some going to El Salvador, among other places.
So, they would’ve gotten the much-needed exposure, although we didn’t get a chance for them to compete at home” Smith concluded.
