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| Minister of Sports, Stephen Lashley??(foreground), trying his handat a game of table tennis during a cultural event in Bridgetown. (FP) |
If the Minister of Sports, Stephen Lashley, gets his wish, Barbados could be hosting a regional road tennis tournament in the future.
Mr. Lashley said interest in the sport had increased and local officials were looking at the possibility of staging a regional game. "Over the past two years, we have seen phenomenal growth in the interest in road tennis across all the parishes. This year we will have another inter-parish competition and we are seeing more teams coming on board," he stated.
He made the comments yesterday at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, during a press conference to discuss three academic sports programmes the University will be offering soon, one as early as next week.
The Minister expressed the view that road tennis, "as an indigenous Barbadians sport, needs now to be internationalised to the point where…it is being seen and accepted as an Olympic Sport".
And, Mr. Lashley urged the university’s management team to document the origins and growth of road tennis over the years. "If you don’t do it, somebody will jump and do it before you and it would be a tragedy if our own campus does not do that study," he emphasised.
The National Sports Council introduced a National Inter-Parish Road Tennis Championship in 2010 to raise the profile of the sport, as well as to encourage greater cooperation among communities across the island.
Mr. Lashley disclosed that officials were currently working with prospective sponsors to have special electronic score boards made for the road tennis competition.