Table Tennis Association to host Caribbean Pre-Cadet Championship
Local Pre-cadet table tennis players will be competing against their Caribbean counterparts in August when Guyana hosts a major regional pre-cadet championship.
The Guyana Table Tennis Association is currently planning to host the Caribbean Pre-cadet championships in Guyana later this year.
Godfrey Munroe, President of the Guyana Table Tennis Association said,
“Tentatively we’re scheduled to host the Caribbean Pre-Cadet Championships, which is the U13 and U11 categories. And this fits into the Ministry (of Culture, Youth and Sport) and Minister Ramson, National Sports Commission Academy Programme.”
The event is tentatively slated to be held from August 19th to 20th.
“And we want to use this as a catalyst for the establishment of a new nucleus of Junior talent.”
Munroe noted all the Caribbean nations that regularly compete in the sport have already signalled their interest to compete.
“While we’ll have competitive players playing and competing for medals against their Caribbean counterparts; we’re also doing this initiative because this is something we’ve done in 2013 and it’s paid significant dividends, starting at very young players.”
He noted that the event is highly anticipated, especially given the lack of competitive events for players in this age group since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic.
“The inactivity is not doing well for the sport. You’re losing players and you’re failing to gather new players.”
Guyana has hosted this twice, once in 2013, and prior to that in 2009.
“So the quicker you can find ways to create environments where you can attract and have players play and compete and train, is very critical to the existence, sustenance of sporting activities across the region. So I think in that context there’s a genuine desire to ensure we have those tournaments.”
