Guyana’s hosting of this weekend’s South American Junior Championship received a massive boost on Thursday with the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) and Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) making financial contributions to the organisers.
The Athletics Association of Guyana will be hosting the two-day event at the National Track and Field Centre in Leonora, West Coast of Demerara.
At a simple presentation ceremony held at the Local Organising Committee office on Light Street, the GOA, represented by Vice-President Godfrey Munroe, handed over a cheque for $1M, while GTA Director, Indranauth Haralsingh presented $400,000.
Collecting on behalf of the AAG was president, Aubrey Hutson, who conveyed how grateful the body was for the support for such an important event, which will be the biggest athletics meet ever hosted in the country.
Over 300 athletes from across the 13 nations in the South American Athletics Confederation are scheduled to participate in the meet.
Speaking on behalf of the GOA, Munroe highlighted that the nature of the event being one that targets the development of young athletes made the GOA all the more enthused to throw their support behind the project.
“Being a junior event it is of particular interest to the Association in ensuring that the focus is on the development of junior athletes and this is one such development. It’s going to be a mega event and we want to congratulate the AAG to undertake the hosting,” Munroe said.
For the GTA, this donation is part of them holding true to their promise to throw their support behind developing sports tourism in Guyana; after the body only two months ago held a sports tourism seminar advocating for the development of Guyana as a sports tourism destination.
“The GTA is proud and pleased to be associated with the AAG and the hosting of this mega South American Championships. We came on board as a sponsor to help directly in the area of hospitality services for these visitors so that they can go back and be good ambassadors in promoting destination Guyana. We’ve done a number of other things, providing flags, doing some marketing and PR, assisting with tour packages,” Haralsingh said.
“With over 300 athletes coming to Guyana they will be able to go back and speak positively about Guyana, send out photographs. We see this as a major sports tourism event and we’re happy to continue our support for events such as this, that bring visitors to Guyana.”
Overseas teams have already started arriving for the meet. Guyana will have a team of 50 athletes, the biggest contingent of Guyanese athletes to ever represent at any international meet.
Admission to the venue is $500 for each day.
