She is the junior Sportswoman-of-the-Year but few persons are aware that Ashley Khalil is a multi-talented athlete who last year represented her country at the regional level in two Caribbean championships.
The 14-year-old Khalil has the distinction of being the country’s under-15, under-17 and under-19 squash champion last year. Not bad one might say but there is more to the pretty Khalil than meets the eye.
She repeated the feat of being a multiple national champion but in another racquet sport – badminton- at last year’s national badminton championships.
In what is certainly a unique achievement, Khalil won the under-15, under-19 and under-19 singles titles at the national badminton championships last year – a truly rare accomplishment and a first in the history of both sporting disciplines in Guyana.
While the achievement might not be good enough for the Guiness Book of World Records, Ashley Khalil’s achievements are worthy enough of being written in the annals of Guyana’s sporting history.
Khalil, it seems, can excel at any sport.
One can recall Eric Phillips, of Queen’s College as representing Guyana in more than one sport and of course there have been others.
But in today’s sporting world where specializing is the name of the game Khalil is indeed a rare find.
But Khalil did not confine her sporting prowess to the local courts alone.
The runner up in the national ladies Squash singles, Khalil won the singles crown at the under-15 2007 Caribbean Squash Championships and she also played unbeaten for Guyana in the under-17 team events at the Caribbean Squash Championships in 2006 and 2007.
She was selected to represent Guyana in the Female Under-19 Pan American Squash Championships more with the hope of gaining experience. However, her father said that she surprised everyone by winning silver and bronze medals, narrowly losing in the singles final.
On the completion of the Caribbean Squash championships, Khalil turned her attention to the badminton courts winning a silver medal at the Caribbean 2007 championships in Suriname.
Towards the end of last year she was the runner up for the Silver Plate in the ladies’ category of the Canadian Squash Open championships.
Ashley Khalil is also a top athlete and has been the current age-group champion girl for her school where she dominated the distance races.
Yet much is not known about her achievements both locally, regionally and internationally.
Her father Raymond Khalil feels that this may be due to sports journalists being unaware of Khahil’s pursuits in the sports arena.
He told this newspaper that he was forced to speak about his daughter’s achievements because of the insinuations contained in some reports in the local media that she was not deserving of the Junior Sportswoman title for 2007.
Raymond Khalil said that the insinuations were affecting his daughther, who is a Grade `A’ student at Marian Academy, in a negative way.
Other family members including he are also affected which he said was unfair because family members in no way influenced the panel which deliberated on the nominations and made the award.
Raymond Khalil said that his daughter was in Canada exploring the Canadian squash courts at the time the awards were being held.
Last year, in transition between the ages of 13 and 14, the senior Khalil noted that when his daughter won the under-15, under-17 and under-19 squash championship for the national titles there was not much focus on her, but yet there was one player who defeated another player for the first time and that was the feature of the day. “Not one journalist sought to interview Ashley,” he said.
When Ashley returned to Guyana as the Under-15 Caribbean Squash Champion the public was never informed and because her achievements were never highlighted, the senior Khalil said that impressions were now being conveyed that she was not deserving of her achievements.
He said that her love of sports and maintaining a level of academic work at school was not easy.
“Somehow she manages it even though she does not get to train as she would want to,” he said.
Maintaining both academic work and sporting activities, he said, calls for “a lot of commitment and hard work on Ashley’s part. Somehow she does it and she continues to surprise us all.”
He said that at present his daughter feels cheated and scared because of the insinuations that “Ashley pulled strings. It is disturbing. I feel credit should be given where it is due,” he said.
