The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Three years ago, the Bahamas Swim Federation won the Carifta Swimming Championships for the first time and successfully defended it in 2015 before losing it to Guadeloupe this year.

This year, the BSF hosted the Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships for the first time and they finally hoisted the trophy in the XXI version of the biggest regional competition yesterday.

The Bahamas didn’t win the fivw kilometre open water swim race in Long Wharf as Matthew Lowe did in the 10K race on Sunday. But the team accumulated enough points to help secure the overall title with the swimming competition combined from the Betty Kelly Kenning Swim Complex last week.

When the final tally was done, the Bahamas posted a total of 1,144 points to out-distance their nearest rivals, Puerto Rico, who got 1,036 for second. Trinidad & Tobago was third with 900.50.

“Thirty years ago when the coaches were working together, one of the long range plans that we had turned into the BSF was to win Carifta and to win CISC, so here it is now, we have accomplished that,” said head coach Andy Knowles.

“We also included putting people in the Olympic Games and making the finals and we’re almost there with accomplishing our game plan. A lot of people don’t know that it was something that we had actually set out to achieve and now we are doing it.”

Knowles, back then one of the younger coaches in the BSF, teamed up with two of his rising young protégés in Travano McPhee and Allan Murray, assistant coaches on the team, to help coach Team Bahamas to victory.

“I think it’s really important that we point out the fact that all of the coaches worked together,” Knowles said. “When we come together as coaches, we are able to produce the kind of results that we got from the swimmers in this meet. That is one of the strengths where we are today.”

McPhee, a former national team swimmer, couldn’t agree more.

“We’ve come from a place where we were making finals at CISC where we dominated the meet this year,” he said. “I think this was something special for these swimmers, who just came off competing in the National Swimming Championships a couple days before.

“To go to back-to-back championships and perform as well as they did was remarkable. The team camaraderie was very good. So I’m happy with their performances and I’m happy with where we are as a country.”

Murray, one of the most successful swimmers who went on to represent the Bahamas at three Olympics, becoming the first to make a final in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, said the team was well put together and the coaches worked extremely well to manage the team.

“We couldn’t do it without trying to convince some swimmers to swim multiple events,” Murray said. “I think the coaches did a very good job of emphasising those points to the swimmers and that was what led to our success.

“The management of swimmers is not easy. It’s not one of my favourite things to do. I think Andy and Travano did an excellent job with that, so awesome job to Team Bahamas, both swimmers and coaches and even the parents for being patient with what we wanted their children to do during the meet.”

Knowles called it a double marathon that Team Bahamas participated in.

“I told the swimmers that in any other country, I don’t know if they would have held up the way we did,” he said. “We had four long days of competition in both meets in two weeks. They did a lot of racing and we put in a lot of intensity.

“So me, that shows how tough we were mentally and physically in coming through and winning the CISC after having to go through a tough Nationals the week before.”

Now the focus switches to the hosting of the Carifta Swimming Championships next April when Knowles said the BSF will be out to regain their title before getting prepared to win the swim segment of the Commonwealth Youth Games that will follow in July.

THE FINAL TEAM STANDINGS

Place Team Points

1.               Bahamas 1,144

2.               Puerto Rico 1.036

3.               Trinidad & Tobago 900.50

4.               Jamaica                       564

5.               Barbados                   518

6.               Aruba                         419

7.               Bermuda                    395.50

8.               Cayman Islands            260.50

9.               Suriname                    242

10.             Curacao                      232

11.             US Virgin Islands 195

12.             Grenada                     117

13.             Rep. Dominicana 108

14.             St Vincent & Grenadines 76

1.             Antigua & Barbuda 72

16.             St Lucia                       34.50

17.             St Kitts & Nevis 10

18.             Haiti                            4

Girls 14-17

1.               Puerto Rico                36

1.               Rep. Dominicana 32

3.               Trinidad & Tobago 22

4.               Bahamas                    27

5.               Barbados                   6

Boys 14-17      

1.               Trinidad & Tobago 56

2.               Puerto Rico                34

3.               Bahamas                    19

4.               Curacao                      14

5.               Barbados                   4

Girls 18-and-over

1.               Puerto Rico                36

2.               Trinidad & Tobago 30

2.               Cayman Islands         30

4.               Suriname                    12

5.               St Kitts & Nevis 10

Boys 18-and-over

1.               Puerto Rico                56

2.               Bahamas                    36

3.               Rep. Dominicana 34

4.               Trinidad & Tobago 22