Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
Table Tennis to get valuable support from Government
– three tournaments earmarked
By Edison Jefford
Government and the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) will extend their thriving relationship with a commitment from the former to sponsor three noticeably disparate tournaments aimed at popularising the sport.
Godfrey Munroe
When contacted on Monday, Munroe said that the meeting was held because the Ministry wants to sponsor three tournaments: An Inter–Village, Inter–Ministry and Organisations and the National Schools’ Championships.
“That is another good development toward our domestic programme,” Munroe observed, while briefly outlining the structure of the three events. He said that the tournaments are all aimed at expanding the base of the sport.
The Inter–Village event will be played on a ‘home and away’ game basis with the teams with the best point aggregate emerging champions after the system is completed. This competition is tentatively set to begin in April.
“We want to start with the East Back, Georgetown and West Bank; national players will be debarred and ‘hard bat’ racquets will be used as opposed to ‘spongy’ racquets just to make it as competitive as possible,” Munroe explained.
Steve Ninvalle
The GTTA General Secretary indicated that the idea of the Inter–Village event was taken from a pre–existing model in Nigeria where there is table tennis in the streets. He said the idea is to emulate that model with more structure.
According to Munroe, invitations will be sent to the various ministries and organisations for the second event while the Ministry of Education is to come on board to help facilitate the grandeur National Schools’ Championships.
In addition to the three competitions, this newspaper understands that getting the sport to the hinterland communities was also discussed. Munroe said that Ninvalle talked about transporting tables and other equipment there.
Ninvalle told Kaieteur Sport that he had these ideas since last year but was unable to meet with the GTTA when he was contacted. The Parliamentary Secretary is of the view that the sport needs more attention.
“Table Tennis needs a little more injection; I had asked for areas that needed to be looked at and our discussions went very well. I plan to take these plans to the minister,” Ninvalle said in a brief comment also on Monday.
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