The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THEY don’t have a 25 or 50-metre swimming pool in the Turks and Caicos Islands, but that doesn’t deprive the Surf Side Ocean Academy Aquatic Club from preparing their swimmers to make their debut in the 2017 CARIFTA Swim Championships.

The club, with an 11-member team, was in town for their maiden international voyage over the weekend to participate in the Barracuda Swim Club/ Atlantic Medical Invitational.

The goal was to get their swimmers familiarised with swimming in the 50-metre pool in anticipation of returning for the CARIFTA Games over the Easter holiday weekend.

“We don’t have any 25 or 50 metre pool at home. The closest we have is an 18-metre pool that we train and get our times in, but it’s not a very convenient or official pool,” said club’s head coach Jennifer Martel.

“We don’t have any diving boards or any pools that is built to accommodate our training because they are too shallow. So we train very hard with what we have, training at the hotel pools and an elementary school pool. That is the closest that we get to a proper one, but it’s only 18-metres long and only four very small lanes.”

Bringing the Surf Side Ocean Academy to compete here in the Betty Kelly Swim Complex is like a track club taking a team to compete in their first indoor meet in the United States.

But despite their deficiencies, one of their swimmers Jade Grandsire won the girls’ 8-and-under high point trophy with 128 points. There were also a few swimmers who attained the Turks and Caicos Islands’ qualifying standards for CARIFTA.

“Incredible,” was how Martel summed up their team performance. “We’re so proud of them. All of them swum personal bests, some of them took 10-15 seconds of their longer races and none of them got disqualified, which is very huge because we were worried about them competing in the 50m pool for the first time. “We also saw some of them swim CARIFTA qualifying times, which is huge, competing at their first international meet. We hope to be back here in about a month to compete again at CARIFTA.”

Martel said if the opportunity presents itself, they would love to come back and compete in another meet before CARIFTA so that their swimmers can lower their times.

“Unfortunately, I will have to be teaching some swimming lessons after taking the weekend off to be here this weekend,” Martel said. “So if they come, they will have to come with some parents if that’s the case.”

Martel said originally they only had 10 competitors scheduled to compete, but after one of the sisters saw the pool, she asked if she could swim as well and the Barracuda Swim Club accommodated her.

“This is a fantastic 50-metre pool,” Martel said. “Everyone has been so hospitable from host to timers to the other swim clubs to the swimmers, everyone has been so kind and warm. It was such a wonderful experience.”

Having got a taste of what to expect here, Martel said they can’t wait for CARIFTA.

“We’re hoping that when we come back, they will swim their personal best,” Martel said. “We had two swimmers, who ain’t here, who already qualified and we have high hopes for the other swimmers who qualified this weekend.

“We are just hoping that the swimmers will continue to turn in best times and work their way up to the point where they can compete with the other kids at CARIFTA, even if they are at the lower level of the competition.”

As the only swim club on the island for a number of years, Martel said their swimmers only saw each other as they competed.

“We had nothing to gauge off,” she said. “I’ve been constantly telling the parents that their kids are terrific, but you don’t know how fast they are. So coming here was a great eye opener for the kids and the parents to see that their swimmers have a lot of potential.”

And with the formation of a new swim club in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Martel said they will have some competition to look forward to racing against.

Hopefully, they will be able to combine their resources and return to the Bahamas to compete in more meets as one team, although they still represent their own clubs.

“There are so many incredible swimmers here, so it was amazing to watch them,” Martel said. “We were able to watch them so that we can see what we need to do to get to that level. “Even though they have the potential, they have seen what the competition is like here, so it has given them the boost to train a little harder and work towards the swimmers that are here.”

In their first meet here, all of the swimmers had atleast one spectator in the stands cheering for them - either a parent or sibling - which, according to Martel, made the trip that much more special.