CARIFTA Swimming championships: B’dians give solid performance

THE Barbados team exceeded original expectations to put in a solid performance by the end of the pool portion of the 2022 CARIFTA Swimming Championships. With the sport suffering locally under the impact of the pandemic, a haul of over 40 medals and 519 points to see Barbados finish fourth overall is being hailed as a success.
The top spot went to the Bahamas with 975 points, while Jamaica finished second on 833.5 ahead of the Cayman Islands who were third with 754. The hosts who did not field a full team but were able to secure a sound footing in the meet through Jaiya Simmons, who ended Tuesday night’s action at the Aquatic Centre by being named the Girls 11-12 champion.
Simmons and Heidi Stoute went to work in the 11-12 50 Metre Freestyle and came away with Gold and Silver with 28.22 and 29.05 respectively. Third went to Saleste Gibson of the Bahamas who finished in 29.17. The same event for the boys ended with Barbados’ Victor Ashby (27.76) picking up a Bronze hot on the heels of Jayden Davis of the Turks and Caicos Islands (27.27) and Chris Soeperman (27.30).
Stoute and Ayobami Leon-Barker sandwiched Martinique’s Sayane Guivissa for the Gold and Bronze medals in the Girls 11-12 400 Metre Freestyle. Stoute’s time of 4:36.93 minutes gave her the win and a new record in the event. Guivissa swam 4:58.88 for the Silver as Leon-Baker (4:59.26) chased her all the way to the end. The Boys equivalent saw Brennan Watson finishing in 4:47.36 for a Bronze medal behind Joey Schvartz of St. Martin (4:41.83) and William Farrington of the Bahamas with 4:46.90 minutes.
In the 11-12 Girls 100 Metre Breaststroke, Amiya Harrison was good for a Silver when she clocked 1:24.30 minutes behind a first-place time of 1:20.45 from Coco McGrath of the Cayman Islands, while St. Lucia’s Fayth Jeffrey was third (1:26.48). Tariq Greenidge finished the boys’ race in the middle of Jamaica’s Kai Radcliffe (1:15.00) and Trinidad and Tobago’s Alejandro Agard (1:18.62 to snag Silver with 1:18.01 minutes. Adara Stoddard was third with 1:16.93 in the 15-17 Girls equivalent behind the Jamaican duo of Sabrina Lyn (1:13.15) and Mackenzie Headley (1:16.34).
Greenidge came back out later to add another Gold medal to his tally with 2:26.84 minutes in the 11-12 200 Metre Backstroke. Luke Higgo of the Cayman Islands was second (2:33.54), while the Bronze medal stayed in Barbados with Nikolai Sisnett who finished in 2:39.31. Greenidge was just three seconds off the record, which was set back in 2009.
The night’s performance ended with a Gold medal in the Boys 11-12 4X50 Metre Freestyle Relay. Greenidge, Ashby, Brennan Watson and Zachary Burke all pitched in to touch the wall first in a time of 1:52.25 minutes. Jamaica finished
second with 1:55.36 and the Bahamas copped third. The girls team missed out on a Gold medal in their event through disqualification.