2010 described as a success (Part Two)

Jan 05, 2011 Sports

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– Minister of Sport Dr. Frank Anthony

We continue with the final part of this two-part series with the Minister of Culture Youth and Sport Dr. Frank Anthony reflecting on the performance of his Ministry and Sports Associations during 2010.
National Sports Awards

Dr. Anthony notes that a document has now been established that will be used as a guide in selecting the Sportsman, Sportswoman and Association among others.
Over the years we’ve have complaints about subjectivity, persons don’t know how the recipients are being assessed and so forth; so we’ve now completed a document that will be used and persons can see how in the different categories how people are being awarded or recognised.
It took us a lot of time to develop; a lot of time to get the opinions of persons but it is now ready.
We are also introducing a couple of new awards including two school awards; the best Primary School in sports and the Best Secondary School in sports and we will also introduce the Best Community in sports.
Kaieteur Sport – What are yours and vision for Sports in 2011
Minister Anthony – In 2011 there are a couple of things that we want to do. One would be doing phase two of the synthetic track which will become the flagship infrastructural programme for the Ministry. We’ll be putting a lot of emphasis on that.
We will also be putting up a total of ten (10) multi courts in various schools so that would be completed early this year. Lawn Tennis, basketball and volleyball among others are some of the sports that will be played on the multipurpose courts which would boost the development of these sports in schools. Monies for these projects have already been allocated.
Cycling Track at National Park
Re-surfacing of the cycling track around the inner circuit of the National Park will be done and monies for this project have already been allocated and the company contracted. Parking will also be developed by the Burrowes School of Art where a tarmac will be built.
Motor Racing
Forty Million dollars has been allocated to the Guyana Motor Racing & Sports Club for the resurfacing of the South Dakota Circuit, Timehri.
The works will be started shortly and this would help them to improve what they are doing. All these projects will be completed this year and will really help to boost sports development here.
Table Tennis
We have started a programme with table tennis where we want to get boards in schools. Last year we gave out 30 table tennis boards to different schools, this year as well as next year, this project will continue so that by the end of it we will have more than 100 boards in schools and at the same time we will be expanding and making sure that more students play the sport.
Again, this is being done in a systemic, organised manner. The ministry of Education had trained a number of Physical Education Teachers in level one coaching and they will be used to help train students. We will be doing competitions so that students can become competitive and this is the kind of comprehensive programme that we want to see in the schools.
Chess
We would also be looking at expanding chess. We’ve had a good programme going with the Chess Federation and we have just completed the schools chess championships. Last year was very significant for them. We have brought in players that are ranked by FIDA for them and now Guyana has players of International Ranking because of the competition that we had here. So we are now back into the International community of Chess.
Cricket Academy
We are also looking at the possibility of establishing a cricket Academy more on a full time basis at the Stadium. What we envisage by this is to have a maybe 20 to 25 of our top players have fulltime coaches and managers to work with them to develop a programme.
What you will have is a professional team that would be able to hold their own anywhere in the world and this is the way we need to go; fulltime playing and staff working with them. Once we are able to put a system like this in place I think it will help the local cricket grow not just at the top level but generally.
We want to start with cricket but I would imagine that once we have a system that is up and running, we would have to do it for the other sports, football and the likes because that’s the way sports is going now. You have to get professional teams of people working with the players so that winning is not an accidental thing, winning would be a much planned affair. We would replicate this initiative for other sports; this is something that we are looking forward to start developing this year.
Accreditation Programme for Coaches
Emphasis will be placed on developing an accreditation programme for coaches. We have spoken about this in the past and we have now sat with the various associations to see how we can develop such a document.
Why this is necessary? Many people are not properly trained as coaches but they have the title of a coach and sometimes they can do more harm than good. So we want to give people who are in the business of coaching an opportunity to get the right qualifications and be properly accredited so that the coaching profession would be suitably recognised, so this is something we are working on and once achieved would lift sports to another level.
We are also looking forward to hosting a number of international events this year and one of the major ones will be the West Indies and Pakistan tour. We’ll be working with other associations and federations to host other events.
A number of associations are also in the process of developing their own facilities and this year I hope that they can be substantially completed. The Karate College was given an acre of land and the sod was turned recently and they would be raising money to complete this facility.
The Guyana Olympic Association has also received an acre of land and they have a beautiful plan for their building and I would like to see them get going with their facility.
It’s good that the associations themselves are trying to own property and facilities and I’ll like to encourage more of the associations to go down this road because when you have your own facility it helps with the development of the sports.

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