GASA Boss praise Sports Minister’s Sports Academy initiative

Oct 10, 2021 Sports

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Despite Covid, four C/Ships set for the rest of the year…

By Sean Devers

Kaieteur News – President of Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA), former National Hockey player Dwayne Scott was high in praise for the soon to be launched Sports Academy which is the brain child of Minister of Culture, Youth & Sport Charles Ramson jnr.

The launching of the Sports Academy for the 12 Core Sports is scheduled for some time next week and Scott says the objective of the Academy mandates you at have different levels of development from Nursery to Intermediate to Elite.
It also needs to design programmes both locally and internationally and venues are critical for training and holding local tournaments. “Every club has a nursery programme and are mandated to hold at least one tournament per year in addition to the meets organised by GASA. And now we have the commitment from the Sports Minister and the NSC to support us with funding to run such events, I suspect that we will soon see sports catapulting locally,” said the GASA Head.
Scott, who was elected as GASA’ President last November in the height of the Covid Pandemic to serve of two-year term, informed that three overseas and a local Meet is scheduled for the remainder of the year.
“A qualifier for the World Championships, which will be held on October 23, This Meet is to identify Athletes to represent Guyana in the short course Event in Abu Dhabi.
Regionally, the South American Championships will be held in Peru before the Junior Pan Am in November and the World Championships in December are held,” said the 44-year-old Scott.
Olympian Aleka Persaud, Leon Seaton Jr, Paul Mahaica Jr, Daniel Claxton, Elliott Gonsalves, Sekhel Tzedeq, Patrice Mahaica, and Ariel Rodrigues have been selected for a camp in Peru.
“We hope to send the athletes to Peru for two weeks but there is a possibility that it could be extended beyond two weeks to accommodate additional sessions in preparation for the four athletes who have been selected for the junior Pan American Games.
These athletes were selected from a Swim Meet we had on August 22 which we had received approval from the Task Force.
Having looked at the performance of the Athletes in a series of events they took part in and based on aggregate times we were able to identify these key Athletes… granted there were some Athletes missing for various reasons.

Mind you we have committed to deliver the performances and improvement of 19 athletes and this goal still remains a big part of we will do.
These eight athletes will just be in the first tier of development and will not be removed but others will be added.
There is a strong possibility that more names will be added to the list of names for the South American Championships but for now these are the athletes that we have selected and the process that we have done.”
Scott informed that there is a quota of four swimmers for the Junior Pan Am Games and the World Championships, while 12 can attend the South American Championships.
“We select people on performance by the Coaches and the technical committee based on the criteria that we have set; which are a points system related by time and a formula used to calculate the time swam at the Events.
Different Events have different time calculations for the points system…so you will find that those who swim longer races or different events will have different calculations on the different times they swim.
It’s not an easy process… it’s a very complex system of performance, time and previous time and is done by the technical committee.”
“The Task Force has asked GASA to have everyone vaccinated. We were asked to send a list of all Swimmers and Coaches who are of age to be approved for vaccination and we have encouraged everyone to get vaccinated.
We had to submit the names to the Task Force before our last meet.
We continue to adhere to all Covid protocols and so far we have not had any positive cases at any meet, locally or international that we have attended.

If you understand science…we swim in chlorinated water and bleach is one of the remedies for this virus, in addition, you exhale below the water, while the Pool at the Aquatic Centre is only open for the 19 swimmers presently in training,” said Scott.
“Due to the pandemic which started two years back we have lost Athletes who could not do anything and they turned to other things, some of them practically do nothing, they just sit at home and play Video games.
People would have gained weight and the sport requires a continuous regiment of exercise and the absence of that for an Athlete means that the process has been cut off and you have to now recondition every Athlete you bring back into the Pool.
Even if dry land training, Pool time is very important since you use every muscle when you swim but there are some key muscles that needs to be trained to be exceptional in the sport and you have to retrain all those muscles again,” Scott lamented.
According to Scott, GASA has six fully qualified Coaches in Guyana and they are used on a rotational system.
“We ensure that every year each Coach attends at least one International meet. This is agreed to by the council which mandates how we operate and is guided by the technical committee which comprise of the Coaches and the technical people who set and assists systems in the adherence to the FINA rules.
There are Coaching clinics run by FINA and the GOA and whenever those sessions are held we ensure that all of the Coaches attend,” disclosed Scott.

GASA will have two FINA clinics on November 5 and 27 which include school, Ministry and Hinterland (Open Water) Coaches and the successful ones will be accredited by FINA, who funds these clinics.
Scott informed that the Sports Ministry and NSC are refurbishing Pools, including the Castellani Pool in Kingston and upgrading the Aquatic Centre by installing lights and putting roofs on the stands.
“When completed we could hold night Meets and attract more spectators and sponsors to Swimming. We have six clubs but I want to expand the sport beyond Georgetown and Linden,” said Scott.
GASA called a Special General Meeting to deal with financial improprieties in 2019 and Scott was asked how did he deal with that issues, has anything being put in place to bring those responsible to justice? And what is being done to ensure that financial improprieties do not happen again?
The GASA President responded that there were some findings of monies were spent and not accounted for and these findings were brought to the Council and those responsible resigned.
“Mind you the audit which was conducted did not find that the monies were used for personal benefits but that does not say that wrong-doings were not conducted.
And hence at that time, which was way before I was involved in the Sport at this level, the then Council would have accepted the resignations and the entire executive Body was changed.
That body was replaced at the last elections and currently just three members of the past Administrators are a part of this one.
I would give credit to the honourable Treasurer for putting things in place for this to not ever happen again by implementing different measures of financial Management which includes a voucher preparation and approval system, three ‘two signature’ system.
We also produce monthly financial reports which is allowed to be scrutinised and an annual audited financial report if we see something is not right we will address it as quickly as we can,” Scott explained.

 

 

 

 

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