Table Tennis could be back to competitive action by the end of November with the National association finalising plans for a restart.
The association will look to follow all the rules and regulations set by the Ministry of Health in order to ensure the safety of players and officials.
According to Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) President, Godfrey Munroe, “The athletes’ health, well-being, and safety is of paramount importance to us, so we want to ensure we get this right as we venture out.”
“In this regard, we will use the National COVID-19 Task Force and International Table Tennis Federation’s guidelines and will be using some independent health personnel to assist us with a review of our processes, while ensuring necessary approvals from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport are secured.”
The plan is to use a top-12 and top-16 duel format, which would allow the opportunity to schedule and timetable the matches well in advance.
This approach will aid in limiting the number of players participating in the competition so as to comply with the social distancing protocol.
The intention is to invite players as they are scheduled to play, so the venue would not have more than six players in the playing area at any given time.
Both junior and senior players will be engaged and the intention is to provide trophies for the former and cash incentives for the latter.
The categories to be contested for the initial restart competition are Men’s Top-16 Duel, which will come from among the nation’s top 16 players who competed at the 2020 edition of the Senior National Championships, while the Boys’ competition will also include the top-16 juniors.
The Girls’ clash will be between the top eight junior females, while the Senior Females will be an open battle among the active local players.
The plan is to carefully evolve and advance this format with the hosting of similar type competitions involving the age group categories in the next edition of the competition, proposed for December 2020.
Matches will be streamed online since spectators will not be allowed at the venue.
