Historic moment for Vincentian swim team at CARIFTA Swimming Championships

Swimmers from St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) produced the best results ever for a Vincentian team at the CARIFTA Swimming Championships, held in Aruba from April 22 to 26.{{more}}

Outstanding performances were had by Shne Joachim, Shane Cadogan and Nikolas Sylvester, all of whom qualified for multiple finals.

Shne Joachim, who last year won SVG’s first ever swimming medal at a CARIFTA Championships while swimming in the 11 to 12 years age group, repeated that feat this year while swimming in her first year, as a 13-year-old. Shne won the bronze medal in the 100 metre Breaststroke, while swimming in the girls 13 to 14 age group. In the 50 metre Breaststroke, Shne set a new Carifta record in the preliminary heats and qualified first for the final. Her new Carifta record of 34.38 seconds is only .04 seconds short of the Youth Olympics Games qualifying standard. She also qualified in fourth position for the final of the 200 metre Breaststroke. Shne set three personal best times.

Shane Cadogan, swimming in the boys 11 to 12- year-old age group, qualified for three finals and set eight personal best times. In the finals, Shane was 6th in the 50 metre Breaststroke, 8th in the 50m Freestyle and 6th in the 100m Breaststroke. Shane’s performance in the final of the 100m Breaststroke was even more outstanding, when considering he had only 15 minutes between the 50 Free final and the 100 Breaststroke final.

Nikolas Sylvester, swimming in the boys 13 to 14 year-old age group, qualified for the two finals and set eight personal best times. In the finals, Nik was 6th in the 50m Breaststroke and 5th in the 100m Breaststroke.

In a release, the SVG Swimming Federation extended congratulations to Shane, Nikolas and Shne for their excellent swimming.

“Congratulations also to Kyle Dougan, the SVG Coach of the Year in 2013, for his excellent work in preparing our young swimmers for CARIFTA. Without Kyle’s dedication and commitment to our swimmers we would not be as competitive as we have been. Finally, a special thanks to our partners, the National Lottery, Scotiabank, LIME and the National Olympic Committee. Without their continued support we would NOT have competitive swimming in St Vincent and the Grenadines,” the release said.

The Carifta Swimming competition featured more than 300 of the best swimmers from over 18 Caribbean countries including the Bahamas, Jamaica, Suriname, French Guyana, Trinidad, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Barbados.