The inaugural President Games, initiated by President Dr. Irfaan Ali, will be held this weekend at the National Gymnasium on Mandela Avenue.
Teams will be vying for the One Guyana trophy.
The two-day event, organized and funded by the government of Guyana through the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, will see athletes from six disciplines—Tennis, Volleyball, Badminton, Futsal, Table Tennis, and Squash—compete.
Due to the upcoming Senior Caribbean Champions, squash will be deferred until September.
All of the associations spoke about using the event as a way of either exposing new talent or as a tool for preparation for impending regional tournaments.
According to Emily Ramdhani, the Guyana Badminton Association will field a team at the CAREBACO Junior tournament in Aruba from August 22-25. For that reason, they will opt to play a team format in the President Games.
Similarly, Levi Nedd, President of the Volleyball Association, said they are using it to prepare their Under-19 and senior teams for the impending tour of Trinidad, and the bulk of the players will come from Berbice and Demerara.
More so, David Fernandes, President of the Guyana Squash Association, contended that competition builds character in athletes and that games such as these aid in building better athletes.
Fernades noted that they will have a team attend the Junior Pan American Squash Championships from August 29 to September 1, while the senior ladies are the Pan-Am qualifiers in Peru.
Given the time constraints and shared event space, the Associations’ heads indicated they had adopted the shortened to-format event where applicable.
