By Noelle Smith
Swimming officials from Guyana and Suriname will have to wait another month for Switzerland based international body, FINA, to assign a representative to facilitate a training programme here in Guyana.
The officials clinic, which was scheduled to commence the 2018 calendar for the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) has been pushed back another month.
GASA’s president, Ivan Persaud, told Stabroek Sport yesterday that the clinic was scheduled for the end of January but they are still waiting to hear from the swimming body which official will be sent.
“Unfortunately we still have not yet been told who FINA will be sending to facilitate the clinic,” said Persaud.
“This is another month that it will be pushed back and we can do nothing but wait until we get word from them,” he added.
The training session, which had originally been carded for November 2017 was postponed to the following month since FINA was faced with traveling issues with the British native selected to run the clinic. GASA was forced to reschedule for December and later, January 2018, hoping that FINA would have been able to assign a new representative.
According to Persaud, one of the objectives of the association is to improve the level of the officiating within the sport.
“While we want to have the swimmers improving, we also want to add to the two local officials certified by FINA by the end of the year. The officials are important at a swimming competition as they are the ones to be judges and ensure that the technical rules of the pool are followed when the athletes take to the pool,” he stressed.
The next date for the clinic will be set after FINA confirms the representative they will be sending in order to facilitate the Surinamese.
“Suriname has seven persons they want to attend the clinic and they will have to get the release from their jobs (which would take about a month) to travel once we send the invitation requesting their attendance,” Persaud said.
Meanwhile, as GASA is awaiting confirmation for the clinic, their next order of business outside of the pool will be the association’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) to be held February. A meeting is expected to be held during the week in order to finalise a date for the AGM.
