South American Youth Games champ Deshawna Skeete calls on Dr. George Norton

Oct 14, 2017 Sports

Most of the delegates of the successful team that represented Guyana in the quadrennial South America Youth Games that was held in Santiago, Chile, paid a courtesy call yesterday on Minister of Social Cohesion with responsibility for the Department of Culture, Youth and Sports (DCYS) , Dr. George Norton.
During the meet and greet at the DCYS’ Boardroom, Main Street, the National Sports Commission (NSC) took the opportunity to present each delegate with an NSC medal for their representation of Guyana.
Present at the gathering was Mackenzie High School’s Deshawna Skeete who sprinted away to win the Girls’ 400m race.
The 15 year-old Lindener clocked a time of 57.28s in a photo finish ahead of Brazil’s Jessica Moreira (57.54) to have Guyana’s National Anthem played for the first time at this prestigious event.
Skeete noted that it was tough getting acclimatized to the chilly temperature but she managed nevertheless to come out successful, “It was really cold but I trained way too hard and made too many sacrifices to not come out on top and I did. It was a very emotional moment for me.”
Although Guyana sent five (5) sport disciplines to the second edition of South American Youth Games, namely Badminton, Table Tennis, Boxing, Basketball and Athletics, the latter reaped all four (4) of the medals (1 Gold & 3 Silver).
Kenisha Phillips finished 2nd in both the 100m and 200m final while Jermaine King scampered to silver in the 100m final. Phillips and King who are both Linden based, couldn’t attend the event with the Minister due to their participation in District 10’s (Linden) Inter-School Sports which begun yesterday.
Chef-de-Mission of Guyana’s contingent, Godfrey Munroe, satisfyingly shared, “I think the Guyana-brand was well represented in Chile.
Although, athletics reaped all the medals, all the disciplines were competitive. The 3×3 Basketball team was unlucky not to advance to the quarterfinals after losing out 13-11 to Ecuador in the round of 16 while the Table Tennis squad made it to the quarterfinals.”
This 2017 season has seen some talented athletes with vast potential burst onto the scene from Guyana with successes at the CARIFTA games, South America Junior Championships, World Juniors and now the South America Youth Championships. Acting Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Social Cohesion, Steve Ninvalle, was happy to state that, “Our (Guyana) recent good performances in Track and Field is showing that the sport is making strides in our Country.”
With the prevalent strides Sports and more recently athletics continue to make in Guyana despite limited support from Government, newly appointed Sports Minister Dr. George Norton, promised better administration at the Department of Culture, Youth and Sport: “As we celebrate the success of these athletes, I don’t want us to look back at the things we did wrong although it’s imperative to learn from mistakes, but let’s look to the future as the ministry looks to do all it can in offsetting expenses in the athletes training and academic pursuits. We promise to give you all that we can for your development”, Norton promised.

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