Table Tennis to resume in December

Nov 21, 2020 Sports

Table Tennis will resume in December.1

Kaieteur News – The head of Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA), Godfrey Munroe, has confirmed with Kaieteur Sport that the body’s ‘Restart Competition’ which was scheduled to serve on next Friday (November 27) will get underway the following week instead.
The association is in consultation with the relevant authorities and Munroe has confirmed that they will follow all rules and regulations set by the national COVID-19 task force and the Ministry of Health to ensure the safety of its players and officials.
In a release to the media the GTTA had noted that, “The athletes’ health, well-being and safety is of paramount importance to us, so we want to ensure we get this right as we venture out. In this regard we will use the National COVID 19 Task Force and ITTF guidelines in addition to the utilisation of some independent health personnel to assist us with the reviewing of our processes, while ensuring necessary approvals from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport are secured.”
The plan is to use a top 12 and top 16 duel format which would allow us the opportunity to schedule and timetable the matches in advance so players will be aware of their schedules and we will be able to promote the matches in advance.

Head of the GTTA, Godfrey Munroe.

This format also allows us to limit the amount of players participating in the competition so as to comply with the social distancing policy.
The intention is to invite players as they are scheduled to play, so the venue would not have more than six players in the area at one time.
The correspondence explained that players will only come to the venue based on the schedule of matches. “We will have a period to allow for sanitizing of the playing area after each match, so space and time would have to be allowed between matches and for players to warm up,” the release stated.
Another key feature of the GTTA’s restart process is that they would have meetings with the players, umpires and table officials to go over the safety protocols to ensure compliance.
The categories to be contested for the initial ‘Restart’ competition are Men’s Top 16 Duels which will come from among the nation’s top 16 players who competed at the 2020 edition of the Senior National Championships, while the boys’ competition will also include the top 16 juniors.
The girls’ clash will be between the top eight junior females, while the Senior Females will be an open battle among the active local players.
The games will be streamed online.