Inaugural ‘One Guyana’ multi- sport tournament on this weekend

The National Gymnasium is set to be a hive of activity this weekend, with athletes from around the country converging to compete in 5 sporting disciplines.
The games will form part of the inaugural ‘One Guyana’ Sports Tournament, the brainchild of President Dr. Irfaan Ali, which is being powered through funding from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport (MCYS) and the National Sports Commission (NSC).
The multi-sport event was launched on Tuesday afternoon, during which several administrators praised President Ali for the idea and shared about their respective disciplines.
“We welcome this initiative of President Irfaan Ali. We know he’s quite passionate about sport, as many other things, and we’re happy to be a part of such an event to bring forth cohesiveness. Of course, we all know that sport is quite a driving force and a vehicle for cohesion, and it aligns with the ‘One Guyana’ objective as well,” President of the Guyana Lawn Tennis Association (GLTA), Cristy Campbell, shared at the MCYS boardroom on Tuesday.

In similar thought, Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) President Godfrey Munroe articulated, “Table Tennis is quite enthused to be part of this initiative. I think it’s a wonderful initiative. It’s inaugural, it puts together key sports and disciplines. Also, it gives us the opportunity to have tournaments and competitions, which is something, as David alluded to, that we need to have much more often and the buzz that it creates.”
Meanwhile, a few of the sporting associations would be utilizing this weekend’s competition to prepare their respective teams to represent Guyana on the international stage. On this topic, Guyana Badminton Association (GBA) President Emilia Ramdhani divulged, “Badminton is taking a team of 20 athletes to CAREBACO, this is a Caribbean tournament in Aruba, August 22nd to the 25th, and from the athletes we’ll do a team format. We’ll have four teams, we’ve chosen four captains, and we’ll do a random draw, picking their team members.”
On the other hand, Guyana Volleyball Federation (GVF) President Levi Nedd revealed, “This is because Trinidad should be touring on the 24th of August to Guyana, and we’ll have to get these teams prepared for that. So, it’s a good use of initiative to get this going in that vein.”
While 5 of the 6 intended disciplines will compete over August 10th and 11th, the sixth, Squash, will see their part of the collective tournament unfolding in September. Guyana Squash Association (GSA) President David Fernandes gave reason for his Association’s delayed tournament when he said,
“We do have a girls’ Under- 15 team going to Pan American Junior Under-15/Under-17 Championships in Guatemala. So, they’ll probably be there early in August as well. We have a Women’s team currently at Pan American qualifiers in Peru as we speak, so we have a lot of things happening, but it’s a great opportunity for the athletes to be exposed again to multiple tournaments.”
In addition, a number of squash players are currently overseas for various competitions.

Format
Badminton
This competition will be broken down into teams of five, featuring three boys and two girls in each group. They will compete in categories: Boys/Girls Singles and Doubles, in addition to Mixed Doubles. However, each player in the group can only compete in two of the three categories, ensuring every member of the group gets playing time.

Futsal
The Futsal tournament will have 24 teams competing for supremacy in a straight knockout format. The first 12 games are expected to be contested on the first day.
“In the case of Futsal, we’ve been, for 19 weeks now, hosting Sunday morning Futsal programmes at the Agricola Ground and the Buxton Community Centre Ground. So, I’m sure that the players will all be excited to be part of this event, playing for the President’s games, which the winning teams of course will be receiving the ‘One Guyana’ branded trophy,”
Assistant Director of Sport (ADoS) Franklin Wilson said about the upcoming tournament.

Lawn Tennis
This competition will be abbreviated to ‘first to four’ games, with two sets and the third set being determined by tie break. Lawn tennis will have both Open and Novice categories.
“For both categories, we’ll have no advantage. Just to ensure that we finish in a timely manner,” Campbell said about the upcoming competition.

Squash
The Squash competition tentatively set for September 9th – 15th will have a number of categories, namely; Boys and Girls Under-15 and Under 19 Singles, Men’s/Women’s Singles, Doubles and Mixed Doubles. Further, there will be Under-19 Mixed Boys/Girls Doubles and Mixed doubles.

Table Tennis
The Table Tennis competition will feature Open Men’s/ Women’s Doubles and Junior playoffs. Moreover, to cater for the numerous training camps that the sport has currently running, a ‘Novice’ category would be contested.

Volleyball
Volleyball will feature competition in the Male and Female Under-19, in addition to the Senior Male and Female categories. The majority of players are expected to be drawn from the Berbice and Demerara Volleyball Associations.
Teams will compete in a ‘Best of 3’ format to decide victories.
The athletes across the various disciplines will be competing for a chance to clinch the ‘President’s trophy’.