By Treiston Joseph
President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Aubrey Hutson, is confident that his association can successfully host the 2017 South American Under-20 Championships. Guyana recently won the bid to host the championships and immediately questions arose about the AAG’s capacity to host such an event.
Hutson, however, shared his thoughts on the issue. “If I did not believe that the AAG has the capacity or I did not have this vision for track and field in Guyana, I would not have even entered a bid at the Consudatle and give them the confidence that we can do this.
“As President I want to assure everyone out there; be it the patrons who will come to these games and also the athletes in Guyana that we have the capacity, I would never question whether we have it or not, I strongly believe that we have it,” Hutson told News Room Sport in an exclusive interview.
In addition, Hutson pinpointed that with the South American Committee heading to Guyana, the process of prepping for the event will be made easier.
“The one good thing about the family of South America is that they are very supportive, they are not coming here with expectations that everything is going to be perfect but as I mentioned in my press release the South American committee will be here shortly and could be as early as next week to look at what we have and see how best they can assist us in having a successful championship,” Hutson stressed.
Further, Hutson shared that this meet will allow for a number of technical officials to be certified, a first in Guyana, according to the AAG boss.
“Yes in instances we don’t have the necessary technical officials, but we will be running a training programme next month (April) with people from Puerto Rico to train our officials. As a matter of fact, I can afford to say that we have no certified national technical official to date operating in Guyana and we want that to change… so there are positives coming out of this process,” Hutson noted.
Hutson also pointed out that Guyana will try to field athletes in every event despite the country being limited to the core track and field events. He shared that the AAG has made contact with athletes outside of Guyana who are interested.
The South American Under-20 Championship will be held on June 3 and 4 at the National Track and Field Centre, Leonora.
