Squash and Hockey may have the Blueprint for success

Oct 01, 2013 Sports

---

 

 

By Rawle Welch
Three examples of sporting achievements by our national teams in 2013 served to underline the importance of having a long term vision which could almost guarantee success.
The two feats that readily come to mind are the outstanding performances of the senior and junior Squash teams and the gradual improvement of the national Ladies hockey team that recently participated in the Pan Am Cup, having qualified from the Pan Am Challenge Series.

Many may ask why the ladies hockey team, but the mere fact that they were able to battle traditional powerhouse Trinidad and Tobago courageously in two matches, before succumbing to narrow defeats, speak volumes of the vision of the coaching staff.
The three teams are ideal cases of what it takes to produce athletes who if afforded the best opportunities to perform will do so with success.
The ladies hockey team failed to qualify for the World Cup, having finished last of the eight teams that competed in the Pan Am Cup in Mendoza, Argentina, enduring lopsided defeats against some of the powerhouses in the Americas, but managing to close the gap between them and Caribbean champions Trinidad and Tobago and this was so due to the Plan of Head Coach Philip Fernandes, who had started a programme sometime ago that would have included affording the team international exposure in the absence of an artificial pitch.
Fernandes appears to have mapped out a long term strategy which evidently is paying dividends with the team’s recent results against the Trini stickwomen, who in recent times were enjoying the upper hand over the Guyanese.
It emphasises the point that if local administrators of sports work in tandem along with unmitigated support from the Government and corporate community what can be achieved by our athletes.
The Ladies quest to make it to the Pan Am Cup commenced more than three years and during that period they toured Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Canada and it was no smooth sailing both in terms of securing the financing for such huge undertakings, while the disappointing results would have made anyone without a long term aim quit in the face of such adversities, but Fernandes plodded on cognisant of what the real aim was.
The current President of the Guyana Hockey Board (GHB) Fernandes, who would have benefitted from attending FIH Congresses and Courses, was acutely aware that in the absence of an artificial turf, the specified prerequisite for international hockey to be played on, the only other alternative was to tour as much as possible so he set out on the arduous task of accomplishing all that was needed to fulfill that ambition.
It required numerous fund raisers and soliciting assistance from the corporate sector and the Guyana Olympic Association, and he would tell you that it was not easy to convince those Bodies, especially in light of the less than encouraging results.
He, however, stuck to the task and the two encounters against T&T at such a high level tournament that produced two close finishes, going down 1-0 due to a defence error in the first game and losing 2-3 after leading 2-0 is enough evidence to suggest that we might just be a short distance away from joining or even surpassing them as the new regional powerhouse.
The Squash teams, however, have established themselves as the strongest in the Caribbean, a fact borne out of their dominance at regional competitions at both levels.
The Guyana Squash Association (GSA) undoubtedly has the most vibrant junior programme and this strength has been manifested with the continued production of individual champions and countless team titles on the circuit, while the seniors, though, not as dominant as the juniors in the Team events previously, managed to duplicate the juniors’ feat by winning the overall title.
They captured the Men’s and Women’s titles to end up as the top nation in the championships and as many would know, many of those players were graduates from the GSA’s junior system which is structured with a revolving mechanism that consistently churns out new players.
These two Bodies are clear illustrations of how important it is to have a long term plan which should be backed up by personnel with the acumen to navigate the rough pathways when they arrive and stay resolutely on course.
Amateur boxing, tennis and table tennis have started similar programmes, but they are still in their infancy stages so only time will tell the effect of their respective initiatives, but all three seem to be heading in the right direction.
It is just a matter of sharing the information and in some cases working together.

 

 

---

---