The Guyana four-member swimming team which participated at the just-concluded 2008 CARIFTA swimming Championships in Aruba was lauded at a special ceremony held at the Woodbine Room of the Cara Lodge on Saturday.
The Guyana team won a gold and a bronze medal through Jessica Simpson ending the 14-team competition in 13th place with 34 points.
The competition was won by the French Antilles with 1,017 points while Trinidad and Tobago ended second with 801 points, The Bahamas, 721 points, third and Jamaica with 578 points fourth.
Team coach, Franz Huggins, noted the need to build on the current situation.
“For us to be successful we need to take this immediate success and galvanize it so as to be more successful in the future,” he said in a short address.
Minister of Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony lauded the performance of the Trinidad-based Stephenson.
“It is very important for these medals won for swimming and it is not only a medal for her (Jessica Stephens) but it is a medal for the country and it does the sport good for the cause that Guyana can become more recognized in swimming,” said Dr. Anthony.
“The team has done us proud and the younger swimmers should look upon these swimmers as role models and not only swimmers but athletes from other sports just to show what young people can achieve,” he added.
Captain of the Guyana team Niall Roberts said that the competition was rather challenging but added that he felt the team did fairly well given the time for preparation they had.
“I found the competition very hard but I thought the team did well given the pool time we had,” Roberts said.
“Franz played a huge part in the psychological aspect, calming us down and such before going into a race,” he said.
Stephenson thanked the coach for what he had done for her and she also commented on the tour.
“It was so fantastic to come back with a medal mostly being the only girl on the team,” she said.
The other swimmers, Linden Wickham and Ronaldo Rodrigues also spoke of their experiences on the tour after which a presentation session was carried out with the coach receiving a token from the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA).
A certificate was also presented to Stephenson.
An official of the GASA said that even though Stephenson alone was presented with a certificate she did not want anyone to think that the ceremony was primarily about her but that it was to honour the entire swimming team. (KB)
