Alphonso ready to put training to the test at Junior Pan Am

Michael Alphonso is one of three Guyanese squash players who would be representing the country in a boys’ team at the upcoming Junior Pan American Games.

The Guyana Squash Association (GSA), having hosted a playoff to select the team for the Junior Games, has facilitated rigorous training for the group; training has been ongoing for a few months.
Touching on the playoff experience, Alphonso shared that he needs to work hard to prove his worth on the team.
The 15-year-old shared, “It was really tough, cause Nicholas was always my competition for like 2 years now. We’ve been going at it for a long time, and it was really close, it went to 5 games. It was really tough to work hard to win.
“It shows that I really improved in the small time period that I had, and I worked really hard for what I got,” he later added.
On their training, Alphonso revealed that he has had to adjust to his body since returning to the court. However, in his opinion, training has been going well.
“When I started back, I was a lot more grown from last, about a year ago, because of COVID, and I’ve adapted to that. You know, I’m a lot more powerful on the court, I’m a lot faster, so my game has gone up a lot because of my physical growth.”
He continued, “When I just started, I had to get used to my height, because I’m a lot heavier now, so it’s a lot harder to move around the court. I just had to get used to that, and it helped me a lot. I’m moving a lot faster now, and I’m getting a lot better.”
Alphonso further stated, “We’ve been practising a lot for the past 6-7 months, and we’re putting in efficient training to prepare for the Pan Am Games.”
The 15-year-old squash player expects a good tournament with challenging competition. This is especially since the Guyanese teenagers will be contesting against much older under-23 players in the multi-sport event.
“We’re going to a new area of squash. We never really went to international competition, so it’ll be tough. We’re under-23 and we’re like very young compared to the other people. It’ll be very hard, but we’ll do our best to get experience from our time there,” Alphonso commented.
He went on to state on the age concerns, “We’ll basically get a feel of it from people over here, but obviously people from Colombia and so will be training to go professional. So, it’ll be a much tougher situation in Colombia than over here. Over here it’s just local players playing for fun, but there it will be real players.”
Guyana’s squash team comprises Alphonso, Shomari Wiltshire and Samuel Ince- Carvalhal. Other Guyanese Junior players will feature in the multi-sport event in disciplines like boxing, swimming, badminton and table tennis. The games are scheduled to begin on Thursday November 25 and run until December 5 in Cali, Colombia.