‘Table tennis has taken off in Bequia’ – Sargeant

Within a matter of months the sport of table tennis has taken off on the Grenadine island of Bequia.{{more}}

This upsurge in interest was mainly as a result of an initiative undertaken by the executive of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Table Tennis Association (SVGTTA) to start a pilot programme under its National Sports Structure (DNSS).

Under the programme, Rodney Caruth took charge of teaching the sport on the island, which was led by ITTF expert Georg Silbershmidt of Switzerland, who conducted a six-month course here.

Caruth’s work and the donation of boards, rackets and balls to schools on the island injected enthusiasm among the students, which has extended to the wider community.

Testimony of the rise in the popularity in the sport was the Paradise Primary School, which copped the male division of the National Primary Schools’ Competition, while the Bequia Seventh-Day Adventist School was runner-up in the secondary schools’ male teams’ race.

Additionally, Joevel Morgan of the Paradise Primary was the beaten finalist in the male singles of the primary schools’ bracket.

Teacher and coach of the Paradise Primary’s team Anthony Sargeant was not only bubbly with the success of his team on their first time in the competition, but with the popularity of the sport on the island.

“Table tennis has really taken off on the island… All the schools on the island are playing… Before it was just persons with a board at their homes,” Sargeant said.

Giving the inside story of his school’s rise to the top among their competitors, Sargeant noted, “We could not get a board because our school is too small to hold it, so we went to the Bequia Anglican Primary School to practise every Wednesday and at the Bequia Community High School on Fridays.”

Sargeant said that the zeal among his students is great: “We will practise for two hours and more and they will still want to go on…. The same it is with the other schools as well.”

Sargeant was particularly pleased with the progress of his charges, as they have been involved in the sport for “just a few months”.

He believes that on the island, the best set of players are at the Bequia Community High, and opined that the school would have won the male team title, had they participated.

Schools which won prizes and trophies in this year’s schools’ competitions received them last Friday afternoon at a ceremony held at the Curriculum Unit within the Ministry of Education, Reconciliation and Ecclesiastical Affairs.(RT)