[www.inewsguyana.com] – The National Synthetic Track, located at Leonora, West Coast Demerara is now open to athletes for training, following the laying of the synthetic surface and the marking of the lanes in keeping with international standards.
The football field is also completed. Minister of Culture Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony and Permanent Secretary, Alfred King along with other officials visited the track yesterday [Monday, July 14] to inspect the work done.
“The track itself can be used by athletes for training, while those civil works continue….we think that once people start using it we will start seeing a difference in how people are performing because a number of our athletes were not being exposed to synthetic services before,” Minister Anthony noted.
He said that the marking of the lanes will bring the ground works of the track to a close, and the ministry is now working on completing the stands within another six weeks.
The club house is also under construction, and Minister Anthony said that works on this facility will take much longer; however, the ministry is working closely with the contractors to close that particular contract.
The track will be ready to use for international events once the certification is completed by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) within another two weeks.
Meanwhile, Matthew Cohen, survey and line marker of IAAF said that despite the inclement weather, the work was completed in a timely manner and the all-weather track would be ready for international events soon.
Speaking on maintenance, he said that the local grounds men can easily maintain the track and keep the grass low, and depending on how much the track is being used, it can last up to 15 years. The synthetic track facility sits on 30 acres of land and has a football field that is a minimum expectation of a FIFA football match.
A total of $560 million has been spent on the facility thus far. The estimated cost to complete the entire facility is $1.4B.
[Extracted and modified from GINA]
Well am glad we have this here now . Because I am an athlete that lives on the west cost at cornelia ida and it does be a sacrefise for me every day to go in town at my club to train which is MFL now it would be much easy for me I think they should get all of the clubs and pick out the best athletes and work with them so that they can imporve and know how to run on the track better so that they could be come champions for there country.
this is very impressive but why did they carry it so far. they have people on the east coast that runs also and have a whole lot of talent to display to the world. they should think of putting a next one there.