Khan, Blake spearhead teams to Latin American TT c/ships
By Donald Duff
Stabroek News
May 11, 2004
Promising table tennis racquet wielder Matthew Khan and reigning Caribbean junior girls champion Jody Ann Blake will spearhead the national under-21 male and female teams to the Latin American table tennis championships in Venezuela from May 16-22.
According to a Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) official, the body met and selected representative national teams participate in the under-21 and under-18 categories at the championships which will be held in Valencia, Venezuela from Sunday.
"The view of the association is to cater for the long term development of our players by exposing and investing in some of our young players," senior vice president of the GTTA Godfery Munroe told Stabroek Sports yesterday.
"This tournament provides a great opportunity to expose our players and it is our view that the team selected has every possible chance of succeeding, based on the talent comparison relative to other competing countries in this age group," Munroe said.
He added:"Further there is an incentive for players doing well at these championships to have the opportunity to qualify and represent Latin American at the second junior World Championships in Japan to be held from November 28 to December 5 in the City of Kobe, Japan.
"In looking at our road map to achieving success in table tennis in the region and internationally, exposing our players to these environments is very critical," Munroe who will serve as coach of the team said.
The under-21 men's team is considered quite strong due to the fact that three of the players Khan, Christopher Franklyn and Paul Meusa are current national players who participated in an international tournament in Iran late last year.
The fourth player Orin Hickerson is an overseas-based player who attends the University of Ottawa.
The under-18 boys team will be led by Jonathan Sankar with rising stars Edinho Lewis and Marlon Joseph being on their first overseas tour. The fourth player Zach Gonsalves is a junior Pan Am silver medalist.
The four girls players Blake, Michelle John, Trenace Lowe and Delicia Cummings will participate in both the under-18 and under-21 categories.
John is a silver medalist at the junior Caribbean championships and won a gold and two silver medals at the Latin American cadet championships held in Cuba last year.
Linden Johnson will assist Munroe with the coach duties while Joel Wilburg and Annette Lowe are the delegates to the championships.