 Yeah, team Guyana is the focus of today's career. To rewind, the team showed great promise tallying eight medals in Grenada consisting of four gold, two silver and two bronze. Tiana Springer and Malachi Austin won their respective girls and boys under 2400 meter titles. Athalia Hingson took gold in the under 17 girls 100 meters while the team of Springer, Austin, Narissa MacPherson and Nielsen Gill spent to a championship record three minutes 23.51 seconds to cut the mixed relay title. Joining us on the phone to discuss the team's performance and Guyana's bid to host the 2026 Corripto Games is head coach Moses Pantlis. Moses, welcome to the Sports Mag Zone. It is a pleasure to have you this afternoon. I first want to get from you how you feel about Guyana's performance at the Corripto Games. My pleasure. Good evening. And you know, it's a pleasure having me here in Sports Mags. Again, it's overwhelming feelings for know that you know that, you know, where we come in, where we come from and where we are today, we could have gone to the 54th Corripto in Grenada and done so well as. Yeah, for sure. Without a doubt, I want to make the point though that Guyana has been doing well at the Corripto Games for a number of years now. And I took the liberty of having a look at how well you've done in recent editions of the Corripto Games. So 2017, you had eight medals, including four gold, 2018, nine medals, just one gold medal in 2018, 2019, 10 medals, four gold medals there, 2022, seven medals, two gold, 2023, eight medals, three gold medals, and then this year. So it's not as if 2024 just came out of nowhere. It is consistent with what you have been producing for a number of years now. Why do you think though the reaction has been the way it has been for 2024? I think, you know, presently, those years that you know, coaches have been realized in the time we have the potential of athletes, you know, and we've been coming together much more together as coaches and putting in the work, you know, not only individually, but collectively, you know, we have been talking with each other as coaches, knowing that if you have a good athlete in store, you know, you're asking for advice, what to do, what not to do, how to get his athletes to prepare for when these meets come together, you know. So I think one of the important things presently is that coaches are bonding together more than before. So with that, you know, our results will show much better than in the previous time. Yeah, with that in mind as well though, and given the consistency I just outlined in terms of what Guyana has been doing at the Carifter Games, what do you think you need to do as a nation to make the next step? So you have been consistently seven to 10 medals since 2017. As I pointed out, how do you get to 20 and 30 and maybe even 40? How do you get to 10 gold medals instead of just a four? Or is that not the focus of the program? The program is to produce more high quality athletes like the Tiana Springers, like the Malachi Austins, like the Athalia Hingsons. Okay. I think we're still in the building process. We keep building from 2017 to 2024. Resource is one of the most important things and I think for the past couple years, the government have been stepping on board in a small way and they're building. So I think in the next two, three years, as the government have continued to pour resources into the track and field world or into the AEG, I think we can get far better results in times to come. As I said before, we're working together more than before. So as long as the corporate society, business places come together and see the foot of Guyana and start pouring things finance into athletes progression, I think we can get a better results coming next year in Trinidad and even in Guyana, if we get a chance to come to the Austin in 2026, I think in all the time, Guyana will be a force to reckon with when it comes to crypto. The key issue, Moses, for Caribbean sports fans is the issue of infrastructure and the sort of investment that is put placed on facilities. Can you confirm that the Leonora synthetic track that was established in 2015 was the first synthetic track that Guyana had for track and field athletes to prepare on? Yes, it is. Leonora is a force synthetic track, but presently they're working on two more. One is in Linden and one is in Barbies. The one in Linden have already laid and they're preparing it stand-wise. So we will be at least blessed with three tracks in the near future. Yes. So I asked you that to ask you this because I suspect that with the synthetic track established in 2015, it provided for athletes an upgrade in facility and probably I would suspect some inspiration and motivation to advance the quality of the performances. Would you connect the rising Guyana's track and field in the past decade to the fact that you're known nine years in from your first synthetic track? Yeah, we'll say yes. Because we all know that the synthetic track is very important for athletes to move forward. Despite not trading on it on a daily basis, when you're keeping competition, it's very important and it's very better than the grass to keep competition wise so you can really get a good feeling of what a synthetic track is when you go outside of capacity. So I think our synthetic track, Leonora, is very, very important and is important for the movement forward about athletes in Guyana presently. Yeah, because I know that many of the top Guyanese athletes prior to this generation in the crypto games, a lot of them were long distance stars. You had a Cleveland, Brown was his name? Cleveland Four. Yeah, and those athletes don't necessarily need synthetic tracks. They just run all over the place in hills and valleys and that's what makes them strong from the stamina perspective. So I remember him winning 5000 meters races regularly and a couple of other Guyanese who were strong in the distance races as well. I saw a report in one of the newspapers today, Moses, about the projection for your team going to the world on the 20 in Lima, Peru in late August. But there was a provisor mentioned there about funds. It was dependent on the funds because the size of the team that you'd want to send may not come through if it is that the funds aren't there. Can you expand on that a bit? I don't know much, but what I can say with the projection from the crypto team, I think that we will find funds for the 2020 team. The crypto team has done us so much proud. So we don't want to go back after such a good performance and going to a next high level. I don't think we will have far too. But despite the news might say that I know when that time comes, we will feel every single one will qualify for Corrifto. For Corrifto that qualify for the 2020 games will be in queue. I can be sure of it. I hope you're right. And we wanted to mention quickly before you go that I thought your 400 meter wins by Tiana Springer and Malachi Austin displayed in both victories a lot of strategic sense in how they delivered their races. They were very calm. They weren't flustered when others went fast for the first 200 meters. And in both instances, I want to credit those two athletes for how well they measured their races. And from the Sportsmax zone, we want to say congratulations again, Moses. And good on your athletes who did so well in Grenada. All right. Thank you very much. Oh, stay me. And a bless. Yeah. And Moses, just one quick one before you go in 15 seconds. If you can just tell us how difficult it was to make the decision to withdraw Tiana Springer from the 200 final because it was getting to a stage where I was wondering if she was running too much. She had gone 400 heats and finals. She 200 semifinals mixed four by four. And then the 200 finals to come plus she would likely run the girls four by four as well. But then you withdrew her ahead of the 200 final. How tough was that a decision to make? I must say it was a very tough decision as a management team. And, you know, we come together. The five persons who were on the management team. And we sit and we look at it very carefully. And, you know, the physio is one person who share a very good light in our. So, you know, in the best interest of all moving forward, you know, we say, all right, this is it. And, you know, we said that, you know, she will not be taking part in the 200. And that word come from the management team along with the physio. Yeah. All right. Thanks very much, Moses. Pleasure speaking with you and all the best going forward. And that we look forward to seeing more of Guyana in track and field, not just at Carrifta, but all the major junior events and at the senior level as well. Take care. Okay. Thanks. You're welcome. All right. We'll be back with more on this course, Mike Zoome.