SPORTS SCOPE Our Opinion
GTTA: More transparency needed
Stabroek News
April 2, 2004
The Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) has come under criticism for its handling of the Athens Olympics Wild Card berth offered it by the Guyana Olympic Association.
The GOA said they were offered wild card berths for three disciplines namely table tennis, weightlifting and boxing by the International Olympic Association.
The associations concerned the GTTA, the Guyana Amateur Weightlifting Association (GAWA) and the Guyana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA) submitted the names of their athletes.
According to the GOA originally Jonathan Sankar's name was submitted as the GTTA's wild card nominee.
The GOA says they wrote the three associations on January 14, 2004 seeking confirmation whether the associations would go ahead with their original nominations or seek a change.
The GTTA held an emergency meeting on January 15 and on January 16, wrote the GOA putting forward Matthew Khan's name as the new nominee for the wild card berth for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.
But GTTA officials have been conflicting in their accounts of what transpired at that meeting. Some have denied knowledge of the GOA's wild card offer stating that the meeting was to select a person to replace Sankar for a three-month training stint in Spain.
Contacted yesterday assistant secretary Linden Johnson was adamant that the meeting was for a training stint to Spain and that it was only last week that he learnt about the wild card berth.
But president of the GTTA Sydney Christophe told Stabroek Sports on Tuesday that the GTTA met in January to select a player for the wild card offer.
The reason given for Sankar's removal was that he was not training.
The question is why did the GTTA seek to hide the real purpose of Khan's selection?
If they were confident that Khan was the ideal player then they would have had no reason to hide his selection and to give it the appropriate publicity.
It was only when Stabroek Sports revealed the names of the three wild card nominees based on information that the GOA provided that the real nature of Khan's selection was revealed.
This is not the way any association should operate.
If one were to look at the two possible candidates that the GTTA put up then the other nominee Jody Ann Blake should have been the player selected. Blake is a three-crown winner at the last Caribbean championships where she won the girls' singles, girls' doubles with Vida Moore and mixed doubles with Michael Waithe.
The reigning Caribbean junior girls champion also spearheaded Guyana to the girls team title and has improved by leaps and bounds since the advent of Chinese coach Zhou Ping.
She is by far the best female player around. Unfortunately, in the men's division one cannot say the same for Khan who, despite being very promising has not yet delivered.
The reigning men's singles champion is Christophe, who regained the title from Munroe in 2002. Many feel Christophe is still the best male player around possibly with the exception of Munroe. These two are very much ahead of the rest of the field in terms of skill, tactics and experience.It is no secret that the Chinese coach feels that Christophe still has lots of tennis in him and has been trying to get him to resume his career.
Even Munroe who was not considered has better credentials than Khan.
A former Grand Prix winner, Munroe has been Caribbean men's doubles champion with Christophe in 1997, and a three-time junior national champion.
But by far he will be remembered for bringing to an end one of the longest reigns in men's singles table tennis in Guyana when he defeated Christophe 3-0 in the final of the 2001 national championships. Christophe had won the national championships for over 10 consecutive years.
Khan, on the other hand has won no major junior or senior titles to date. Last year he even failed to advance in the under-21 category of the Caribbean championships in Jamaica. His play in Jamaica also was inconsistent as he lost to 45-year-old Carl Sealey of Barbados who was making a return to the sport after an absence of over 10 years.
Khan seems to be the GTTA's favourite player. Last year he was sent on a training stint to Brazil. He returned to Guyana after trials were held to select the men's team to Jamaica and was automatically placed on the team ahead of players who participated in the trials.
It seems clear that the GTTA has not acted with the degree of transparency that it should.
Matters of team selection are especially ticklish and all efforts must be made to make the process as fair as possible. Granted there was not much time for the GTTA to hold Trials but they should have at least be clear on what they were selecting Khan for.
They must realise that table tennis is no longer the cheap sport it was years ago and if players (supported by their parents) spend lots of money on equipment and spend hours training to become the best table tennis player in Guyana then it is only fair that they reap the rewards of what they sow.
Anything else would be a travesty to the sport and a grave injustice to the players.