Cayman swimmers collect 15 medals at CARIFTA
CARIFTA Games: Eddie Weber won a gold medal in the 13-14 Boys 1500m Freestyle
(CNS): The Cayman Islands swimming team won five gold medals, five silver and five bronze for the fifteen medal tally at the swim meet in Bridgetown, Barbados, for this year’s regional CARIFTA games. Cayman sent 21 swimmers, seven coaches and officials, as well as more than thirty supporters. In addition to the medals, the young team clocked some personal bests and record times.
Michael Lockwood, the Cayman Islands Amateur Swimming Association (CIASA) president who was in Barbados, said the swim team’s technical director and head coach, Bailey Weathers, who has been working closely with all the Cayman swim clubs, was beginning to produce the results hoped for.
“All of our swimmers were wonderful ambassadors for Cayman and for the youth of Cayman as they showed what hard work and discipline can produce. CARIFTA is also a great event for our technical officials to gain experience in international competitions and also for our supporters to cheer everyone on,” he said.
Weathers said local meets with organized same-day heats before CARIFTA had given the swimmers the practice they needed to learn how to swim fast enough in the morning preliminaries to make the finals, and then to swim faster in the evenings to medal.
“This is great practice for them and I was very happy to see so many strong swims from all our swimmers,” he added.
The results for CARIFTA medalist were as follows:
DAY ONE: Eddie Weber: Gold, 13-14 Boys 1500m Freestyle, Alison Jackson: Silver, 11-12 Girls 50m Backstroke, Lauren Hew: Silver, 15-17 Girls 50m Backstroke, Alison Jackson, Zororo Mutomba, Ria Plunkett and Holly Stradling: Gold and a CARIFTA record, 11-12 Girls 4 x 100 Freestyle Relay
DAY TWO: Holly Stradling: Bronze, 11-12 Girls 200m Freestyle, Alison Jackson: Silver, 11-12 Girls 100m Backstroke
DAY THREE Ella Plunkett: Bronze, 13-14 Girls 200IM, Alison Jackson: Gold, 11-12 Girls 100m Freestyle, and Silver, 11-12 Girls 50m Breaststroke, Jonathan Key, Cole Morgan, Rory Barrett and Iain McCallum: Bronze, 15-17 Boys 4 x 200 Freestyle Relay.
DAY FOUR: Alison Jackson: Gold, 11-12 Girls 50m Freestyle and 11-12 Girls100m Breaststroke, Lauren Hew: Bronze, 15-17 Girls 200m Backstroke, Alison Jackson, Zororo Mutomba, Emily Link and Ria Plunkett: Gold, 11-12 girls 4 x 50m Freestyle
DAY FIVE: Eddie Weber Silver in the Open Water Swim
CARIFTA Games: Lauren Hew won a silver medal in the 15-17 Girls 50m Backstroke
