National Table Tennis team off to 59th Senior Caribbean Championships in Cuba  

Jul 19, 2017 Sports, http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....ampionships-in-cuba/

Guyana’s National Senior women and men’s Table Tennis Team left Guyana and the USA on Monday Enroute to Havana, Cuba to participate in the 59^th Senior Caribbean Championships scheduled for the 18^th to 24^th July at the “The Sports City Coliseum”, La Habana, Cuba.

The men’s team of national men’s champion Christopher Franklin, Nigel Bryan, Joel Alleyne  and women’s player Natalie Cummings departed Guyana on a Copa airlines flight  to join  Shemar Britton, Trenace Lowe, Chelsea Edghill, Priscilla Greaves, Dianne Chance (Team Manager and Veteran women’s Player), George Nicholas and Cardo Williams (Men’s veteran) who departed through the USA Jet Blue and United Airlines.

Under-21 Women’s Singles

Chelsea Edghill and Priscilla Greaves, the Caribbean Junior girls bronze medalist coming off a one month training stint in China, will contest the women’s Under-21 category.

Under-21 Men’s Singles

Shemar Britton, Caribbean men’s Under-21 Bronze medalist 2017, will lead Guyana’s charge in the men’s Under-21 category.  Britton is coming off a campaign in the USA where he won the Asian American Culture Table Tennis championships, AACTT Open Under-24 category on the 9^th of July 2017 in Flushing, New York.

The team members arrived in Havana at 1:20 am yesterday where they start Guyana’s medal quest in the team events.

Overall 52 men and 44 women will compete in Havana representing 13 associations: Aruba, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Guyana, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia plus Trinidad and Tobago.

A total of 10 events will be held: Men’s Team, Women’s Team, Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles, Mixed Doubles, Under 21 Men’s Singles, Under 21 Women’s Singles, Over 45 Men’s Singles.

It is the 59th time that the tournament has been staged.

Team seeding

Based on the ranking of the teams Guyana Men’s team are grouped with the Dominica Republic and Puerto Rico in Group two in a tough assignment, with two of the top teams in the region.

The Women’s team are grouped with Martinique leading group three.

Play will commence from 9:00am with three sessions daily.

The Caribbean championships is a signature tournament on the GTTA’s and regional calendar of events, since it forms the platform for regional table tennis supremacy and allows the association to lobby for international support among other benefits. This competition also serves as one of our building blocks for the 2018 Commonwealth games and beyond.

The competition has taken on greater importance given the international federation assigning the competition as a qualification event and the awarding of world ranking points to the participating players in the Caribbean which is critical to our success in future given the introduction of global international competition structure in addition implementation of scholarship training awards to the top performing players.