Junior table tennis team banking on home advantage to succeed
Guyana Junior Table Tennis players will be hoping that having home advantage for the Caribbean Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Championships will correspond in a large medal haul.
The Championships will serve-off today at 10:30h at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall and in addition to Guyana, eight other teams namely, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and French Guiana will battle for supremacy.
We are ready! Team Guyana after their final practice session at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Thursday. (John Ramsingh photo)
In light of this, national Coach Linden Johnson is calling on the public to come out in their numbers to lend support to the team. “I want to encourage the public to come out and show support; with the support team should be stronger and be able to do well,” Johnson contended.
Johnson also felt that the group can do well at the champions given the calibre of the players.
The coach is hoping that the likes of Pricilla Greaves, Kyle Edghill and Elishaba Johnson can make the most of the championship since they are in their last year at this level. Also on the radar will be Nicholas Romain, Miguel Wong to see how they progress likewise attention will be on 11 year-old Kaysan Ninvalle who is expected to produce medals in the under-15 category.
Similarly, Xenphon Golia, who is also assisting with coaching, said that he has working with the players to improve their technique and develop strategies. “We are doing the fine tuning fort the tournament and I assure you that Guyana will do well at this tournament,” Golia lamented.
Guyana feared well at last year’s tournament with the junior boys securing a silver medal in a three-way tie with Dominica Republic and Trinidad and Tobago.
Guyana teams: Boys u-18: Kyle Edghill, Elishaba Johnson, Miguel Wong, Nicolas Romain; Girls u-18: Pricilla Greaves. Jamaali Homer, Tirishatha Semple , Aneka Phillips and Boys u-15: Terrence Rausch, Kaysan Ninvalle, Videsh Deo, Triq Saunders, Niron Bissu, Isaiah Layne, Vishan Harrynaught, Brandon Jaikaran, Navindra Persaud, Yeudistir Persaud; Girls u-15: Selenas Jackman, Davonna Bess, Abigale Martin.
The competition will be used as the qualification event for the second Pan American Junior and cadet table tennis Championships scheduled for the USA in September of 2017. Additionally, it will see the top four teams from the Caribbean join the top four from Central American and South America to qualify for the Pan American event which will be held in Argentina July/August.
