Smith, Simmons, Van Lange, Roberts shatter records

Noelle Smith, Soroya Simmons, Britany Van Lange and Nial Roberts continued their record-breaking pace on the final day of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA), Independence swim meet which was held at the Castellani swimming pool.

Swimming in the first event of the day (girls 11-12 100M Backstroke), Simmons won, clocking a time of one minute, 21 seconds to better her own time that she set in 2008 of one minute, 23 seconds. Van Lange fell well below the mark, placing second and clocking one minute, 21.16 seconds.

The third place in that event went to Aureyah Payne. Both Simmons and Van Lange have made the 2009 Goodwill ‘B’ time for the event.

But Van Lange returned in the girls’ 11-12 50M free style to topple both Aureyah and Soroya who finished second and third respectively, equalling Noelle Smith’s 2006 record of 31.23 seconds. She also made the Goodwill ‘B’ time for the event.

The ever improving Smith in the Girls 15-17 50M free style, rewrote Kristyl Robinson’s 2006 record (30:43 seconds) when she clocked 30.39 seconds to win the event. Placing second and third were Ashley Layne and Siedha Dummett.

Smith closed her recording-breaking run in the two day tournament when she clocked 41.36 seconds in the girls 15-17 years 50M Breaststroke to reset her own time of 42.73 seconds that she had achieved two months ago. Second place went to Layne and Andrunie Harris came in third in that event.

Meanwhile Nial Roberts, who represented Guyana at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, continued where he left off on the opening day of the meet and shattered two more records yesterday.

He reset his 2007 record in the boys 15-17 50M Freestyle (24.39 seconds), to 24.16 seconds, beating Stephen Soares and Henk Lowe into second and third places respectively.

Roberts broke another of his records, this time in the boys 15-17 100M Butterfly. In 2008, Roberts swam 1:00.78 seconds, but yesterday he bettered it, swimming 1:.48 seconds.

The Dorado Speed Swim Club member wrapped up his awesome day in the pool with another record, this time in the Boys 15-17 100M Freestyle with a time of 53.95 seconds, taking off  his two year old record of 54.41 seconds.

In all three of his record-breaking swims, Roberts made the goodwill game ‘A’ qualifying times.

Other top performers on the day were Athena Gaskin who won the girls 13-14 50M Freestyle and also made the Goodwill games ‘B’ qualifying time in the event.

Sheik Amir and Dare Omali made the games’ qualifying times as well for the boys 13-14 50M Freestyle event, with ‘A’ and ‘B’ times respectively.

Daniel Scott also made the ‘B’ qualifying time for the upcoming Goodwill games for the boys 8 and under Breaststroke.

The Independence swim meet is being used by the GASA to select their team to the 2009 Goodwill swimming championships, which will be held in Barbados in August.