After 14 months of waiting, swimmer Delroy Tyrrell has finally completed his nationality switch and can now represent Guyana internationally.
This was confirmed by an official correspondence from World Aquatics. According to the correspondence, which was seen by this publication, World Aquatics wrote to the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) concerning the approval of Tyrrell’s nationality switch, which took effect on September 30.
The letter, which was signed by World Aquatics Legal Counsel Jan Exner, stated, “On behalf of World Aquatics, we write you concerning a request for a change of Sports Nationality dated 10 September 2024 concerning Delroy TYRRELL (the “Athlete”).
Having examined the documents sent by the father of the Athlete and Guyana Amateur Swimming Association, we inform you that World Aquatics has approved the request for the Sports Nationality change of the Athlete, born on 31 October 2002, in the Aquatics sport of Swimming, from Trinidad and Tobago (TTO) to Guyana (GUY). Therefore, the Athlete is entitled to represent Guyana (GUY) in international competitions from 30 September 2024 onwards.”
The aforesaid decision puts to rest Delroy’s longstanding battle to represent his home nation in international competitions. He is currently based in the USA, where he goes to college and swims at the collegiate level in that country.
Efforts to contact GASA President Dwain Scott for a comment proved futile.
Tyrrell, who previously represented Trinidad and Tobago at the youth level, had a process of switching his sporting nationality blighted by uncertainty and issues of whether or not his documents had been submitted to World Aquatics by the GASA boss.
However, things came to a head earlier this year when Tyrrell’s father contacted Exner to ascertain whether or not any documents were submitted by GASA pertaining to his son’s nationality switch.
Exner’s previous response via email was in the negative, which brought about further issues, in which the National Sports Commission (NSC) and the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) came to a decision to drop GASA from their list of core sports for the National Sports Academy.
In addition, World Aquatics gave the Tyrrells the option of submitting their own application and documents in lieu of GASA not meeting the deadline for submission of Delroy’s application in September.
