The Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited, today signed an agreement with the Port Moresby Racquet Club to sponsor their Junior Squash Development Program.
At the signing ceremony, Stephanie Alopea representing KPHL said, “Although KPHL is well known for supporting some of the more popular sports in PNG such as soccer, rugby union and rugby league, we are also aware that the country has being quite successful regionally in squash and this interest has to be maintained through coaching of junior players.
“PNG sent a small team of squash players to the Commonwealth Games in Manchester last year and has played in regional competitions for years, so it is evident there is core of talent in the country who are available to mentor younger players.”
KPHL is active in many non-petroleum related areas including support to the health sector, community development, education & training and various sporting codes, which now included squash.
POM Racquets Club Squash Director, Merlyn Alarcos said the sponsorship from KPHL is timely as they are need of this kind of support in developing junior squash players.
“We are grateful for Kumul Petroleum to come behind us to support with the development of juniors. In our recent overseas tournament in Sydney they (junior players) were exposed to the level of squash that they need to get to.
“They did quite well in terms of development and meeting up with the Australian and New Zealand juniors, they were quite competitive but we were not there yet. With this type of sponsorship on board, we hope to do better this coming Oceania Squash Junior Championship, which will be held in New Zealand.”
KPHL is more than happy to make a contribution of K25,000 towards the Racquet Club Junior Squash Development Programme.
“We hope that it will make a real difference in the nurturing of young squash talent- the next generation of PNG representatives players.
“Our focus in the next few years is to maximize KPHL’s involvement in a wide variety of national development projects at all levels and this clearly involves community development initiatives and the support of all types of sports, including squash,” added Alopea.