By Daraine Luton, Staff ReporterTHE CARIBBEAN Table Tennis Championships, which start tomorrow, have been cut short by a day to allow the University of Technology (UTech) to prepare for the start of the 2003/04 academic year.
The games will begin as scheduled tomorrow but will end on Friday, August 22 instead of the 23rd which was earlier stated.
UTech's Alfred Sangster Auditorium is the venue for the event but as the chairman of the championships organisational committee, Donald Salmon, explained it was necessary to give UTech the chance to deal with its business.
"We have disrupted UTech," said Salmon.
He said auditorium was UTech's registration area for new and returning students. Due to the event, alternative registration areas had to be created.
"They also need to get the area ready for school to begin ... and they also want to make preparations for those coming in for lodging," Salmon added.
He also slammed down rumours that The initially sought after National Indoor Sports Centre was to house the games.
"I am the chairman of the organisational committee and as far as I know the Championships will take place at UTech," Salmon said.
Just recently, the JTTA was sent scurrying for a new venue after they were unable to come up with the money charged by Independence Park Limited, for the use of the National Indoor Sports Centre, where the World Netball Championships were held.
One source told The Gleaner that initially, Independence Park Limited quoted a figure of $4 million for the use of the facility but this cost was reduced to $3.2 million after the intervention of Sports Minister Portia Simpson Miller.
That cost was still too high for the association.
When the championships get going, games will have a longer afternoon session and a shorter morning session due to the hot temperature.
Although organisational problems have cast shadows on the Championships, Peter Moo Young, vice president of the Jamaica Table Tennis Association (JTTA) said Jamaica's teams had not lost focus on the job at hand.
"This is Jamaica's best chance of lifting the cup," Moo Young said of the men's team chances of turning the tables on their competitors who dumped them at the bottom of the pile last time around.
Top male player Darren Blake, who is based in England, has been described by the vice president as one "in sparkling form".
"He has been training well and he has not allowed the situation to get to him," Moo Young said.
Referring to JTTA president and three-time Caribbean champion Stephen Hylton, who has come out of retirement to play, Moo Young said: "I am glad he is in the team ... he is a legend and an experienced player."
Along with Hylton and Blake, national champion Hector Bennett, Nigel Webb and Gavin Hylton make up the men's team.
The women's team features Nina Burton - national champion, Colette Palmer, Kadian Carney and Andrea Wadsworth. Jodian James is the reserve.
Twelve countries have been confirmed to participate in the event. They are Jamaica, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Curacao, Guyana, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela and Honduras.
Jamaica last hosted the championships in 1993.
