27th OECS Swimming Championships

The OECS Swimming Championships are an annual event featuring countries from the OECS with competitive Swimming programs. The 27^th annual OECS event was held in St Lucia November 10^th to 12^th, 2017. Thanks to financial assistance from the SVG National Lottery, FLOW, Scotiabank, CGM Gallagher and the SVG Olympic Committee, St Vincent and the Grenadines sent a team of 25 swimmers and 2 coaches to this event.

SVG continues to improve by almost every measure in competitive swimming. We continue to get closer to the other islands. However, we have the smallest team of about 25 swimmers while the other countries have about 35 swimmers. As a result we are not yet competitive in the team scores part of the competition. However, in the individual swimmer results, we continue to see terrific results. The highlights this year include:

• Thirteen (13) different athletes brought home medals.
• SVG swimmers won a total of 62 medals including 27 gold, 16 silver and 19 bronze medals.
• SVG swimmers broke 8 OECS records
• Three of young swimmers captured the overall championships in their age groups.
• We captured 4 gold medals in the Relays.

We saw truly outstanding swimming:

• Zariel Nelson, swimming in the girls 8 & Under age group won 6 gold medals in her 7 races, broke 4 OECS records and won the overall championship in her age group.
• Caitlin Polius, swimming in the girls age 9 to 10, won 6 golds in her 8 races, broke 3 OECS records and won the overall championship in her age group.
• Eltonte Leonard swimming in the boys age 9 to 10, won 6 Gold medals in his 8 races on his way to the overall championship in her age group.
• The girls age 10 & Under won Gold in both of their relays. The team members were Kennice Greene, Caitlin Polius, Adiah Phillips, Jamie Joachim and Zariel Nelson.
• The boys age 15 & Over won one gold and one silver in their 2 relay races. Shane Cadogan, Nikolas Sylvester, Dillon Gooding and Cruz Halbich made up the relay team.
• Jayson Sandy broke the Boys 50 Breaststroke record and won 6 medals including a gold and finished second to his teammate, Eltonte, in 3 races.
• Adiah Philips included 2 gold medals in her 4 medal performances.
• Shane Cadogan competed in the boys age 15 to 17 and won five medals including gold.
• Nikolas Sylvester also swan in the boys age 15 to 17 category and included one gold among his four medals.
• Seth Byron, boys age 8 & Under won five medals (including two silvers)
• Bryson George, boys age 11 to 12, won 4 medals
• Jamie Joachim, swimming in her first year of age 9 to 10, won three silver medals.
• Kenale Alleyne, boys 11 to 12 won two bronze medals
• Alex Joachim, swimming in his first year of age 13 to 14 won two bronze medals.
• SVG’s national coach, Kyle Dougan led by example and swam only the 50 meter Breaststroke race in the mens 18 & over and won the bronze medal.

SVG Coach Kyle Dougan expressed his satisfaction when he noted that five years ago SVG had only Shné and Alex Joachim as medal winners. He said, “we have made tremendous progress in the last 5 years and we are seeing the emergence of some great talented and hard-working kids. Its very satisfying to see their progress. Swimming continues to demonstrate what true team-work is. This success we are having is due to the athletes, the parents, the SVG Swimming Federation as well as the coaching”.

The complete medals winners list is below: