Venue woes force cancellation of AAG National Championships

The lack of an appropriate venue and scheduling conflicts have forced the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) to cancel its National Senior, Youth and Junior Championships 2023.
This revelation was made by the AAG’s Executive during a press briefing on Thursday morning.
According to the AAG, the continuation of work at the National Track and Field Facility, Leonora, West Coast Demerara (WCD) forced the Association to look into other alternative venues.
The Guyana National Stadium, Providence, East Bank Demerara was presented as another option, but the fact that the Stadium had a 300-metre track posed added issues.

“Due to the unavailability of …Leonora, this is mainly because some works are presently being done with the re-laying of the track, we were unable to run off this competition. We were given assurances that the track would be completed by late July. However, again we rescheduled for the latter part of July and we were forced to cancel, works were not completed,” Local Organising Committee (LOC) President Tyron Smith shared.
Smith went on to divulge, “We were, however, promised to be given the National Stadium as an alternate venue. However, because of cricket and also that venue is a 300m track and it would not have been appropriate to host an event of this standard.”

The AAG then considered using the Guyana Police Force (GPF) Sports Club Ground, Eve Leary, but other hurdles arose.
“We would’ve then decided to merge both events, that’s the National Seniors and the Youth and Juniors to have one event during that period from the 11th-13th of August. However, as you know, during the month of July the Guyana Police hosted their month of anniversary celebrations. So, a number of events were hosted at that venue,” Smith related.
“We did an inspection last Friday, myself and the other members of the LOC, which included the technical delegate Mr Mark Scott and we observed that only three lanes were up to standard. At that time the ground was soggy, there was some fire burnt on some parts of the track. So, the ground could not have been prepared in a timely manner for us to host the competition this weekend,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the new track at Linden was ruled out owing to its lack of certification from World Athletics and the lack of supporting facilities, which are currently being built.
Quizzed about how the initial postponement of the meet in July and further cancellation of the August 11-13 combined meet may affect athletes, Smith affirmed that there was no damage done.
The LOC President shared, “Although we were not able to hold this meet, some of our athletes would have been given exposure in other meets around the Caribbean. We had some athletes compete in Trinidad last week, we had some going to El Salvador, among other places. So, they would’ve gotten the much-needed exposure, although we didn’t get a chance for them to compete at home.
“The grass track is not an ideal surface for a meet of this magnitude. So, ideally, cancelling the event totally was one of our best options, especially given the time of the year, time of the season,” Smith said.
With the Junior and Senior Championships called off, the AAG will now shift their focus to the South American 10K Road Race, set for November 5, 2023. (Jemima Holmes)