Black Sands Swim Squad (BSSS) swimmers have spent the last 6 weeks resetting some of St. Vincent’s national swimming records.
With the support of the SVG Swimming Federation, BSSS hosted time trials event for 6 consecutive weekends from 9th May – 13th June.
Complying with the recommended social distancing and event holding guidelines in relation to Covid-19, 34 swimmers participated in the time trials which resulted in a total of 14 national records being broken.
Jamie Joachim, the youngest of the Joachim swimming family, broke a total of 5 national records in the Girls’ 11-12 age group as follows: 100m Freestyle – 1:02.16; 100m Breaststroke – 1:11.26; 100m Butterfly – 1:09.77; 100m Individual Medley – 1:11.31; 200m Individual medley – 2:36.51.
Kevern DaSilva achieved 1 record in the same age group, setting a new mark of 32.22 for the 50m Backstroke.
Mya DeFreitas, selected as an Olympian for the now postponed 2020 Games, produced a total of 4 record breaking swims in the Girls’ 13-14 age group. Her record-setting marks were 1:01.46 in the 100m Freestyle; 4:35.48 in the 400m Freestyle; 1:07.65 in the 100m Butterfly and 1:11.07 in the 100m Individual medley.
Abigail Deshong also smashed two records in that age group for girls, registering 32.95 for the 50m Backstroke and 29.63 in the 50m Butterfly.
Back from his first year at Stanford University, Shane Cadogan managed to break 2 national records in the men’s open age group. His time of 23.74 is the new record for the 50m Freestyle and he also set a new mark of 1:00.44 for the 100m individual medley.
BSSS Head Coach Kyle Dougan commented that some of the times would have placed our age group swimmers among the top 10 swimmers in places like the United Kingdom.
Swimmers here now look forward to the SVG FLOW National Invitational Swimming Championships to be held from 10th – 16th August 2020. (Source: BSSS)