SPORTS

Michael Lockwood will be swimming in his final CARIFTA meet.

Jodie Foster will represent Cayman in Barbados.

Brett Fraser will join brother Shaune at CARIFTA.

The top young swimmers in the Cayman Islands have been preparing for months, getting ready for the CARIFTA Swim Championships. Swimmers worked their hearts out to make the qualifying times that would allow them to represent Cayman at the event, which will take place in Barbados from 6 to 9 April.

After all the hard work, the Cayman Islands Amateur Swim Association has announced the team that will take on the best the Caribbean has to offer at CARIFTA. CARIFTA plays a very important role in the development of regional swimming in the Caribbean, and also serves at the regional age-group championships.

The championships not only includes swimming, but also water polo and synchronized swimming, although Cayman does not field teams in those events. The competition takes place over four days, with swimmers competing in one of three age groups – 11-12, 13-14, and 15-17.

There are two sessions each day, with the preliminary rounds of events being swum in the morning, followed by the finals in the evening. The event is contested under the rules of the international governing body for swimming, FINA.

Three members of the Cayman Islands team will be competing in CARIFTA for the last time, as Shaune Fraser, Lisa Rombough, and Michael Lockwood will fall outside the contested age groups next year. For the first time, the team also includes a Special Olympic athlete in the form of Andrew Smiley.

National Special Olympics Aquatics coach Penny McDowall thought Andrew would be “an asset and inspiration to the team in his dedication to the training and the sport.” “The benefits to him going are immense in training for the Special Olympic World Games 2007 to be held in China the level he will be competing against will be extremely high and the confidence gained through swimming in a high profile setting such as CARIFTA will be invaluable,” she said.

As in the past, team selection was based on a combination of qualifying times, training and the needs and limits of the team. The swimmers started their buildup to CARIFTA well before Christmas, and will be training up to the day they leave for competition.

With their coach Dominic Ross seeing to the team at the Commonwealth Games, the swimmers are currently under the care of new swim instructor Alex Webb, while Coach Ross will hopefully have enough time to get used to the Caribbean time zone before they head off to Barbados. The team could not have prepared as well as they have without the help of their sponsors.

Maples and Calder has recently joined Cable & Wireless, Cayman Airways, and Speedo as major sponsors of Cayman swimming. Swimming is of course one of the more difficult sports to sponsor, as apart for the limiting rules imposed by FINA, there is not much room on swimming caps or costumes for any sponsor exposure. Another major sponsor of swimming in the Islands is the public.

Through the recent sponsored swim of Seven Mile Beach and the raffle ticket sale, members of the public can continue to support the swimmers as they make their way to the top of the sport. T

ickets can be obtained from team members, or contact Maria (926-0726), Dagmar (917-3632), or Dr Yin (949-5600) if the swimmers are too busy training. The prize drawing will be Friday 31 March.