Guyana produced a sub par performance finishing third at the recent Caribbean Table Tennis Championships held at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall but national coach Linden Johnson feels the players could have done better.
Guyana bagged one gold, two silver and six bronze medals for third place overall at the event.
Guyana only featured in three finals – the veteran men’s and women’s finals and the under-21 female final.
Johnson, who was a part of the coaching team leading up to the competition believed that while the team could have done better their performance was still good.
“I feel that the team could have done better, just some mental toughness was lacking. We had some opportunities to win gold and we didn’t capitalize on it but overall I think Guyana did well,” Johnson told Stabroek Sport in a telephone interview.
Guyana’s only gold medal came from female veteran player Desiree Lancaster who amassed the most points to win the round-robin type event.
With the team having a higher ratio of younger players compared to seniors, Johnson concluded that more exposure for the team will have to be a factor if the athletes are to get better for next year, along with having their own training venue.
“One of the things we are planning on doing is getting more exposure for the athletes leading up to these games.
“We also need to get a venue as early as possible so we can get more tournaments as well as longer and better training hours without being disturbed,” Johnson concluded.
With the competition, over the players will now enter into the off season part of their calendar year while some of them, according to Johnson, will look to play some tournaments in Trinidad and Tobago later in the year.
