The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

HEAD coach Andy Knowles said he knew sooner or later the Bahamas would emerge as champions of the CARIFTA Swimming Championships.

Over the weekend in Savaneta, Aruba, the Bahamas’ 36-member team won the 29th version of the championships for the first time, accumulating a total of 736.50 points and producing 55 medals, inclusive of 23 gold, 22 silver and 10 bronze.

“It was a total team effort,” said Knowles on the team’s return home on Saturday night as they were greeted in the Lynden Pindling International Airport by Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Dr Daniel Johnson and family members and friends. “It’s something that has been coming for a long time. We got second three times so it’s really good to win it.

“I haven’t worked it out yet, but I think we probably had about 80-90 per cent of personal best performances. Everybody stepped up. We were leading after the first day of competition, we tracked everything from day one and how we were doing and so every event, we just watched it carefully and the medals just kept flowing. So at the end of the day, we were getting a lot of medals, especially gold, so we were watching the points.”

Going into the last day of competition, Knowles said Team Bahamas was leading by about 73 points, but in order to win it, he felt they still needed a strong performance to finish off the five days of competition. As it turned out, Team Bahamas held off Aruba by 118.50 points.

Aruba trailed with 618 points and 512 medals - 16 gold, 16 silver and 19 bronze. Guadeloupe was third in points with 540, but their 10 gold, 10 silver and 16 bronze for a total of 36 medals placed them sixth on the chart. Trinidad & Tobago, who was fifth in the point standings with 446, was tied with Aruba with 16 gold. They also had 11 silver and seven bronze for a total of 34 medals.

Throughout their stay in Aruba, Knowles said the management staff kept advising Team Bahamas that they were poised for an historic performance and one event after the other on the final day of competition, everything unfolded as the celebrations started to take form.

“Tenniya Martin got things started off for us in the (girls 11-12) 400 metres free and from there on, it was like a statement. We were going to show everybody that we were going to win this,” Knowles said. “After she won that, Darren (Laing) was next as he moved up to fourth or fifth, then Albury (Higgs) won her race and Alec (Sands) just missed out on the bronze with his fourth place.

“We were even stronger in the breaststroke and after the 200 back, we were surprisingly even more ahead and we ended up winning about 16 medals and we more than doubled our points, so it was like a good explanation mark on the championships for us as we finished off real strong.”

Looking back at the performances of Team Bahamas in the past, Knowles said he just knew that it would only be a matter of time before the Bahamas ascended the top of the podium and returned home with the distinction of being the best nation in the Caribbean.

“I think one of the biggest differences was everyone has been working hard, knowing that we wanted to go down there and be strong,” Knowles said. “So for the last two years, I think the kids have been working very hard and there has been more aggressiveness between the clubs as far as trying to get their swimmers on the team.

“And two years ago when we hosted it, we had one kid in the boys 11-12, who made the final and he finished eighth in the 200 back. Last year, a lot of the 12-and-under boys were 11 and Joshua Roberts, who was on top of the list, made a few finals. Now a lot of those guys moved up and so we were a lot more stronger when they stepped up to the 13-14 division.”

With competitors like Albury Higgs on top of the girls’ 13-14 division and Dustin Tynes on top of the senior boys’ division (15-17) and Laura Morley on top of the senior girls’ division (15-17) with this being their last year, along with Joanna Evans in the senior girls, Knowles said they were confident that Team Bahamas had a very good chance of finally winning the title.

“We just started telling the kids that we had a chance to win it and once they worked hard when we get down there, it would put us in a position to win it,” he said. “When we got there, everybody just went out and gave it their best. We had a lot of outstanding performances, so it was really a team effort that did it for us.”

Higgs won the girls’ 13-14 high point trophy after she collected 78 points from her seven individual medals, inclusive of five gold and two silver. Evans won the girls 15-17 high point trophy with 70 points and seven medals as well, including six gold and one silver.

In the other divisions, Tenniya Martin was 13th in the girls’ 11-12 with 13 points, Samuel Gibson was third in the boys 11-12 with 36 points, Alec Sands had the best showing in the boys 13-14 with 16 points and Dustin Tynes was 120th in the boys 15-17 with 26.

The performance came one week after the 81-member track and field team returned from the 41st CARIFTA Games in Martinique with a seventh place with 20 medals, including just one gold from the under-18 boys 4 x 100 metre relay.

There has always been a debate over the support that track and field gets on their return compared to swimming. While the track and field team’s return home was a little low-keyed, at least the swimmers got a warm reception from a large crowd of spectators, including Dr Johnson.

When asked if he felt that there should be more for the swimmers, Knowles was very diplomatic in his assessment.

“It’s up to the powers that be. I think the swimmers all went out there and proved that we can finally win CARIFTA,” he said. “What it is worth winning it for the first time, is something that they will have to decide. But the swimmers did what they had to do. They won the CARIFTA Swimming Championship.”

With more emphasis on developing a stronger aerobic and endurance base, Knowles said if the swimmers can continue to develop, Team Bahamas can duplicate the feat next year.

In the meantime, Knowles said they will wait to hear about any major celebrations for Team Bahamas. Of course, there’s still more swimming for a number of the competitors, including the CCCAN, the Commonwealth Games and the World Junior Olympics.

“We’re going to spend a little now as coaches on how we could build on what we just did moving forward,” he said. “We will be looking at getting more swimmers to compete in the endurance races and if they can do that, it will be much easier for them to compete in the shorter races.

“We’re going to try to build on our successes, so we can keep it going.”