GTTA hopeful of hosting “Restart Competition”

The Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) is assessing and finalising its plans for the hosting of a Restart Competition by the end of the month.
The association would look to follow all rules and regulations set by the national COVID-19 Task Force and Ministry of Health in order to ensure the safety of its players and officials.
“The athletes’ health, wellbeing and safety (are) 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, and will be using some independent health personnel to assist us with review 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 well in advance, so players will be aware of their schedules and we will be able to promote the matches in advance.
“This format also allows us to limit the number 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.
“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.”
“This will all be covered in the schedule.
“Another key feature of our Restart process is that we 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 Duel, which will come from among the nation’s top 16 players who competed at 2020 edition of the Senior National Championships, while the Boys’ competition would also include the top 16 juniors.
“The Girls’ clash would be between the top eight junior females, while the Senior Females will be an open battle among the active local players. The plan is to carefully evolve and advance this format with the hosting of similar-type competitions involving the age group categories in the next edition of the competition, proposed for December 2020 as we gradually restart the competition and training process
“If the GTTA can get over the hurdles, our plan and aim is to run off these RESTART competition events from November 27. Which would also give our players time to train and prepare for re-engagement. The games will be streamed online, which would allow for persons to view the matches, and although both national junior boys and junior girls and their senior counterparts will compete, the playing area
“The plan is to have cash incentives for the senior categories and trophies for the Juniors would not be crowded.”