St Vincent and the Grenadines competed in the 2015 CARIFTA Swimming Championships held in Barbados from April 4th to 7th. The competition featured more than 300 of the best swimmers from 20 Caribbean Countries including the Bahamas, Jamaica, Suriname, French Guyana, Trinidad, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Barbados.
The SVG Swimming Federation extends its congratulations to our swimmers, Shne Joachim, Nikolas Sylvester, Shane Cadogan and Alex Joachim for their excellent representation of SVG and SVG swimming. Congratulations also to Kyle Dougan, the SVG Coach of the Year in 2013 and 2014, for his excellent work in preparing our young swimmers for CARIFTA. Without Kyle’s dedication and commitment to our swimmers we would not be as competitive as we have been. A special thanks to our partners, the National Lottery, LIME, Coreas and the National Olympic Committee. Without their continued support we would NOT have competitive swimming in St Vincent and the Grenadines. The SVGSF also extends its congratulations to Reuberth Boyd who won a silver medal at the Carifta track and field championships held in St Kitts on Easter weekend. This is a tremendous achievement and shows SVG athletes can compete successfully at the highest levels in the Caribbean.
For the first time in Vincentian swimming history we produced a multiple medalists at Carifta. We also broke a Carifta record and produced our first official Pan Am Games swimming qualifier. The swim team was led by Coach Kyle Dougan and the swimmers highlights were:
- Shne Joachim, swimming in the final year of the 13 to 14 age group, led the way by breaking her own Carifta record in the 50 meter Breaststroke event. Shne went on to win two silver medals in the 200 meter Breaststroke and the 50 meter Breaststroke events. Shne also won the Bronze medal in the 50 meter Butterfly event. She produced a Pan Am Games qualifying time of 2 minutes, 45.67 seconds in the 200 Meter Breaststroke event to become SVG’s first ever official Pan Am Games swimming qualifier. Shne set three personal best times as she continues to improve.
- Nikolas Sylvester, swimming in the boys 13 to 14 year-old age group, qualified for four Finals and set five personal best times. In the Finals, Nik missed out on a bronze medal in the 50 meter Breaststroke by an incredibly slim .01 of a second! He also swam in the finals for the 50, 100 and 200 meter Breaststrokes and the 50 meter Butterfly.
- Shane Cadogan (age 13) and Alex Joachim (age 11) each swam in the first year of their respective age groups and found the competition very tough. However, both did several personal best times and we hope to see them making the finals and fighting for medals at next years Carifta.
FUTURE EVENTS:
The SVG Swimming Federation will be sending a team to compete at the Pan Am Games in Toronto in July and to the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa in September. Competing at the above events is made possible by the support of the National Olympic Committee of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
We are also working diligently to prepare a competitive team for the OECS Swimming Championships to be held in Antigua in November.
Please contact us at svgasa@gmail.com with any queries, comments or suggestions you may have in regard to swimming.