Although not carrying a maximum of forty swimmers the Guyanese team were still able to cop medals at this year’s Goodwill Swimming Championships in Barbados where they placed fourth among Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Grenada. Niall Roberts who recently returned from competing at the FINA World Championships was able to win gold in his 100m butterfly race, silver in the 200m freestyle and 50m freestyle and bronze in the 100m butterfly, 100m freestyle and 4 x 100m relay.
Brittany Van Lange and Soroye Simmons were the only two females to win gold for the team in the 50m freestyle and 50m backstroke respectively.
Van Lange was able to get the silver medal in the 100m freestyle and bronze in the 200m freestyle. Medal hopeful Athena Gaskin did Guyana proud with a silver medal in the 100m freestyle and bronze in the 200m freestyle.
In the boys category Sheik Amir took bronze in the 200m freestyle. In the relays two silvers were won in the 4 x 100m medley and 4 x 50m freestyle while the 4 x 100m freestyle produced a bronze medal in the 15-17 age category. National swimming coach Nicholas Fraser said three of the swimmers who had represented Guyana at the FINA World Championships earlier this month performed fairly well but the competitions were too close for them to give their best.
Those swimmers were Niall Roberts, Henk Lowe and Noelle Smith who were all able to set personal bests at the championships in Italy.
Fraser said, “What happened with those swimmers was that they over prepared because they had intense training prior to the FINA World Championships so they were not on par so to speak and could have done much better overall at the Goodwill Championships.” The coach added that he was proud of his team who beat Grenada in the points standing although they had the maximum of forty swimmers. Suriname finished in first place followed by Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guyana and Grenada in fifth.
Fraser noted that it was necessary for the swimmers to have more practice sessions per week in order to better their performances when going into major competitions like the Goodwill Swimming Championships.
“Now you see over there in Barbados they have more pool sessions per week than we do. We only have a couple sessions in a week and have limited pool time, so that’s what we need right now.”
The Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) for the first time was able to take 17 swimmers who the coach said did an excellent job to qualify, signaling that improvements had been made in the camp. A total of forty swimmers are allowed for each country and Guyana was the only team that did not carry the maximum.
Swimmers will return to their individual camps where they will continue training on a regular basis in preparation for the Guyana Teachers Union Nationals and National Swimming Championships in November.
