Olympic association, Tourism Authority support South American Junior Championships

Jun 02, 2017 Sports, http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....unior-championships/

Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) and Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) offered financial support to the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) yesterday ahead of the start of the South American Junior Championships tomorrow at the National Track and Field Centre, Leonora.
Vice-President of the GOA, Godfrey Munroe, handed over a cheque worth $1M, while Director of the Tourism body, Indranauth Haralsingh donated $400,000 toward the event that will end on Sunday.
AAG President, Aubrey Hutson, received the donations at his office in Light Street, Alberttown. Munroe indicated that GOA was enthused to support the AAG because of the amount of young athletes being targeted for development.
”Being a junior event, it is of particular interest to the association (GOA) 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 indicated.
The contribution from the Tourism Authority came as a commitment to develop sports tourism here after the organisation only two months ago hosted 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 the visitors,” Haralsingh said.
According to the Tourism Director, this is being done so that the visitors can return to their home countries and be good Ambassadors in promoting destination Guyana. He disclosed that they have assisted in other aspects such as providing flags, marketing and public relations and the tour packages.
“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,” Haralsingh observed.
The AAG said that 13 South American countries are expected here with some of them arriving between Wednesday and yesterday. Guyana will have a team of 50 athletes competing at the two day meet this weekend.