He was speaking Wednesday evening at a reception hosted by the local Olympic committee for the contingents that will be participating in the Commonwealth Games and South American Games.

The remaining members of the Commonwealth Games contingent will be departing for Manchester tomorrow, with most of the athletes already there. Just the boxers and some squash players are still here along with officials.

Weightlifters, riflemen and squash player Nicolette Fernandes are already in England preparing for the Games, while the track athletes Marian Burnette and Aliann Pompey are in mainland Europe.

Guyana’s team consists Burnette and Pompey (athletics); Fernandes, Luke Fraser and Regan Pollard (squash), Rudolph Fraser and Theophilus Blue (boxing), Ransford Goodluck and Mahendra Persaud (rifle shooting) and Shondelle King and Julian McWatt (weightlifting).

The South American Games party will leave on July 29, a Monday, for the Games hosted by Brazil in four cities - Belem, Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Guyana will be competing in swimming, table tennis, track & field and boxing.

Athletics are fixed for August 1-3, boxing from August 6-11 in Belem and swimming from Augsut 6-9, the three disciplines in Belem. Table Tennis will be Sao Paulo from August 7-11.

Heads of the various disciplines introduced the team members. Swimming manager Mary Cummings disclosed that Onan Thom of Linden was training in the Demerara River because there was no functioning pool in the mining community. The other team member is Ronald Ying.

“After lots of promises, I’m still waiting to see Guyana with an Olympic-size pool,” said Juman-Yassin who is Chef de Mission of the Olympic contingent.

Distance runner Cleveland Forde who was in the headlines regularly in the recent past was asked to stand up and be recognised.

“All Guyana has been hearing about you. Please continue the good work and do not let it get to your head. If you continue how you are going, you have a long way to go,” Juman-Yassin said.

Chef de Mission to the South American Games urged athletes to do their best at the Games.

“We expect athletes to be as professional as possible. Do your best at that level. You got to raise your level of competition,” Adonis said.

A strong boxing team is under manager/coach Carl Franklin. They are Junior Flyweight Wilmut Hutson, Junior Bantamweight Paul Lewis Jnr, Junior Welterweight Lennox Alleyne, Welterweight Ewan Azore, Light Middleweight Ryan O’Neil and Super Heavyweight Michael Rogers.