Minister of Sports, Stephen Lashley. (FP)
Road Tennis in Barbados is about to be more inclusive than ever before.
Sports Minister, Stephen Lashley, made this disclosure recently during the launch of the Special Needs Inter-School Road Tennis Tournament 2017, which was held in his Ministry’s conference room in Sky Mall.
Mr. Lashley explained that in an effort to emphasise that road tennis was an adaptive, all-inclusive sport, a committee had organised a special needs inter-school road tennis competition.
He said that the competition, which would involve coaches training teams at each of the four special needs schools in Barbados, was all part of the Ministry’s push to carry the Barbadian developed sport to the next level.
“The focus on special needs is also very critical. Our special children can benefit from the intricacies of how to play road tennis… once we can organise the game at the special needs category we believe that there will be significant interest in terms of the international federations responsible for special needs sports,” the Minister explained.
According to Mr. Lashley, one of the pathways forward was to reach out to the international special Olympics community with a view to introducing special Olympic road tennis at an international level.
“That ought to be one of the strategic focuses that we have, in addition to introducing road tennis at the Olympic stage,” he concluded.
The four coaches who will train the special needs athletes were trained in the Ministry’s road tennis coach certification programme last year.