Athletes urged to eye Olympics as Heritage Games open
Heritage Games 2016
− Jones proud of female participation
BY ROMARIO SAMAROO
As Indigenous Heritage Month continues, the 2016 edition of the annual Heritage Games was officially declared open by Minister within the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Valerie Garrido-Lowe as she urged the more than 570 athletes in participation to have an eye on the Olympics.
Minister within the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Valerie Garrido-Lowe (left), Director of Sport, Christopher Jones and President of GSSF, Vidushi Persaud-McKinnon at the opening ceremony
In the feature address to declare the Heritage Games open, the honourable Minister pointed out that the annual event is what is needed for the Indigenous people to showcase their skills in their communities, nationally and internationally.
“Life goes forward and usually takes steps upward so we are looking at the Heritage Games to be our step upwards and to have more competition as well as having more teams coming out for the first time.” Garrido-Lowe said. “These Games allow our people to get experience and exposure and we should focus more on making sure budget allocations for sports are being put in place in order to have more competitive games,” added Garrido-Lowe.
The Junior Minister described her vision to have an inter-village competition before heading to a sub-regional competition and finally having the best of the best coming forward to the Heritage Games while acknowledging the difficulties the rural communities face.
The Moruca-born Minister further added that these players “should take cricket, volleyball, football swimming and even archery seriously and not just as a chance to kick some ball, shoot an arrow or take a little swim but rather view these games with the intention of going and qualify for the Olympics.”
Garrido-Lowe asked the question, how much indigenous people do we have representing Guyana at the international level? As she reminded the attendees that it has to come from events like this so they have to take it seriously, particularly citing “in the Rio Olympics we didn’t do so well but Hannibal Gaskin gave us that hope that we can do better and we can be there and be winners.
Director of Sport, Christopher Jones also welcomed the games, expressing his content with the participation of female athletes in the games.
“I’m delighted to be a part of this year’s games and I must commend the coordinating team for insuring that we have gender equality,” Jones conveyed.
“The National Sports Commission (NSC), focusing on the development of sport, more particularly gender equality. We have placed emphasis on our budget for female teams and are proud to see our female participants here today we are excited and proud,” Jones added.
The Sport Director also signaled athletes that they should focus on achieving the highest of their potential and in the future aim to make it on the team to head to Tokyo for the Olympic Games 2020.
“We hope to see you play to the best and have your eye on Tokyo 2020 Olympics so we at the NSC can know where to focus our attention, in which particular region to identify whether its archery, football, track and field or swimming to list a few.” The Director said.
The day began with the more than 570 hinterland athletes from across the 10 administrative regions in the ceremonial march-past with Minister Garrido-Lowe, Jones, and President of the Guyana Sport Shooting Federation (GSSF) Vidushi Persaud-McKinnon and staff of the Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs taking the salute. In remarks to the gathering, Persaud-McKinnon gave an overview of the GSSF and said that they are expanding with an eye on the Olympics and urged the hinterland athletes to step up to the fore since archery is a way of life already which makes sport shooting second nature. The GSSF, under which archery falls is a young organization and the head of the federation is optimistic of making positive strides in quick time.
Digicel’s Senior Sponsorship and events Executive, Louanna Abrams expressed her company’s gratitude to the ministry of the opportunity to once again collaborate and said that Digicel is committed to the development of the Heritage games and is on board to play their part.
Among the 570 athletes there are St Cuthbert’s male football team and Santa Aratak male and female cricket teams that are in Heritage games of the first time to compete among the seasoned teams.
The three day event covers a wide range of games including Cricket, Football, Volleyball and traditional games such as tuma pot eating, archery, piwari drinking, wood bursting and fire lighting, wresting and turtle tug-o-war. Day one is reserved for football play-offs while day two will see competitive swimming at the National Aquatic Centre at Liliendaal from 09:00h and the play-offs of volleyball, cricket and football. Archery and the traditional games will be held today and tomorrow at Everest.
