GSA president says junior players too young to be competitive

By Kiev Chesney

President of the Guyana Squash Association (GSA) Ronald Burch-Smith said yesterday that the reason for Guyana not participating in the World Junior Championships in Zurich, Switzerland this week end was because the top junior players were too young to make an impact on the tournament.

“The world junior championships is strictly an under-19 competition not like CASA which had different age categories and most of the top players that we have are just about 15, 16 and even 14,” he told Stabroek Sport yesterday.

“If we did send a team they would probably get crushed since the players are older and would probably be miles ahead of them in terms of skill level,” he added.

“Although the teams were good enough to win at CASA, it would be difficult for them to be competitive playing against world class opponents that are four and five years older than them.

“They were able to win at CASA because of the age category structure of the tournament which allowed them to play players their own age,” he said.

“There is no question that it would be good for them to gain experience but it is simply not practical financially for them to travel all the way to Zurich, if we could have afforded it yes, but still it isn’t practical,” he added.
Burch-Smith said that they have a great group of youngsters who will be prepared to make an impact on the competition by 2010 when they would be of age.

New Caribbean boys’ under-19 champion Robert Maycock of Bermuda heads a three member team to the World Junior Men’s championships which begin this weekend in Zurich, Switzerland.
He will be joined by Noah Browne and Micah Franklin.