The 10th annual Caribbean table tennis championships climaxed at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Saturday night minus the pomp and ceremony associated with such occasions.

This, however is not a criticism of the youthful Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) under president Sydney Christophe which tried its best to make the tournament a grand event.

It is, however, a sobering view that with only three countries Barbados, who won the boys team title, hosts Guyana who won the girls team title and the boys and girls from the twin-island republic of Trinidad and Tobago participating, the tournament was robbed of its usual Latin American and South American flavour.

Sportscope was reliably informed that some countries namely Jamaica and Puerto Rico had indicated that they were not coming to Guyana.

These countries had however sent strong contingents to the annual United Sates Open tournament in Miami, Florida earlier this year.

GTTA officials said neighbouring French Guyana reportedly missed their flight and were unable to attend the championships.

This country has a rich heritage in table tennis from the days of Anand Sookram, Guyana’s first Caribbean table tennis champion, who won the Caribbean boys singles title in 1965.

Berbician Sookram was followed by Balkisson in 1967 who won the boys singles title but lost to Orville Haslam in the men’s singles final.

Since then a number of Guyanese racquet wielders have gone on to taste the nectar of success in singles play at the Caribbean championships namely Christopher Chung-Wee in the junior boys division, Errol Caetano in 1972, Bruce Edwards in 1974, George Braithwaite in 1979 and the last men’s singles winner Sydney Christophe in 1992.

Among the women, Claire Harris, sister of Margurite Harris was a Caribbean singles champion along with players like Barbara Jekir, Doreen Chow-Wah and Carol Davidson whose sister Hodiah won the junior girls singles.

There were also players like Denise Osman who won the Caribbean mixed doubles title with Mike Baptiste.

Guyana also won in 1971-72 the first junior team championships with players like Andrew Gorsira and Chung Wee to the fore. Dennis France, Robin Anthony and Idi Lewis have won the junior boys singles titles in the 90's.

There are many other Guyanese players who have made their names in table tennis in Mike Christophe, Trevor Lowe, Colin France, Andy Anderson, Wayne Gaskin, Lynette Smith, Donna Sue, and Bertnell Richards. The latest Caribbean singles winner Jody Ann Blake, who defeated Michelle John on Saturday night has demonstrated that all is not lost where table tennis in Guyana is concerned.

What is of concern however, is that fact that many countries reportedly stay away from this championships because of a number of concerns.

Speaking to one of the officials Sportscope learnt that concerns were raised about the drinking water which was claimed to be brown, the electricity situation in the form of the number of blackouts, the mosquito nuisance and the recent upsurge in crime. These factors it was disclosed were enough to scare most of the teams from coming.

It is a situation that needs to be addressed at once. During these championships there was a two hour delay because of a power outage to the Sports Hall and GPL workers had to re-route the electricity to the venue.

The water situation has improved a bit and there is now bottled water to drink unlike a few years ago. Now both DDL and Banks DIH offer quality bottled water but some countries might not be aware of this.

But generally athletes in this country are too much at a disadvantage with respect to facilities and now it seems that they are even more at a disadvantage. For even if Guyana was to realise the most modern sports stadium, some countries might still opt to stay away because of the state of things in the country.

With the West Indies World Cup looming in another four years it is time the authorities come to the realisation that if our CARICOM brothers and sisters are reluctant to come here for tournaments then there might not be too many foreign spectators come 2007 unless steps are taken to rectify the situation.