Newly-elected president of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA), Dwayne Scott has called for the development of more infrastructure and a unified approach towards improving the sport.
Scott was elected president during biennial elections last Saturday.
Supporting him will be Elke Rodrigues and Randolph De Santos who will serve as vice president -administration and vice president- technical, respectively.
Yelema Phillips was elected secretary and Valmakki Singh treasurer. There was no nomination for the position of assistant secretary/treasurer but the body will ask teams to make a nomination once they convene.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport, Scott said that his immediate focus was having swimming return to the National Aquatic Centre.
“The immediate goal is getting the pool commissioned again. Currently it is out of commission because of lack of treatment. We have some athletes who are preparing for the Olympics and we are working to get their times so they will be able to participate at the Olympics,” Scott stated.
The Sea Otters Club vice-president said that apart from treatment, there were some other structural improvements necessary to extend the amount of time the pool is accessible.
He said, “We have a need for lighting at the Aquatic Centre because we cannot have night events due to the absence of light and we would also be engaging the government and private stakeholders to see where and how we can have this available so we could not only have events but train longer than six or seven o’ clock because by then it gets dark so all of our training has to happen in daylight…and so even the athletes preparing for the Olympics, their preparation time is restrained to day time and its different compared to other parts of the world and these are the things we need to fix and of course we need to work on having a shed for the stand installed once we have commissioned the Aquatic Centre.”
Scott said that there is already a guideline set out by the Federation Internationale De Natation (FINA) to have swimmers safely returning to the pool. He also indicated that the coaches have already been trained to deal with this new regulation.
“As it relates to COVID-19 we have received guidelines from FINA for the safe return of the swimmers. The coaches have been briefed and trained on these methods and once we have access to the pool, we will work to get the athletes back in the pool safely. Currently we have some athletes who are on the ground training, this is to make sure their physical fitness is intact,” Scott revealed.
The GASA boss said that one of the issues affecting the sport in the past has been the disunity among the stakeholders.
However, he plans to invite everyone to have their views heard.
“We also have an issue regarding unity and my view on that is by making everyone involved, by collaborating with all the stakeholders currently in the fraternity, we can improve that relationship aspect and I know there are a lot of talent pool out there who have been involved with swimming and for whatever reason that they distanced themselves, we want to bring them back into the fray of things and incorporate their knowledge with the new knowledge, incorporate their wisdom with the new thinking and move the sport in a new direction,” Scott declared.
