The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Due to the increase in cases in the coronavirus pandemic, the Barbados Aquatic Sports Association (BASA) announced over the weekend that they will have to cancel the CARIFTA Swimming and Water Polo competition for the second consecutive year.

The championships was originally set for April 3-7 at the Barbados Aquatics Centre in Wildey, Barbados, but that was postponed until a later date.

However, Lady Cheryl Forde, president of the BASA, said they are no longer able to stage it until 2022.

“It is with utmost regret that the council (Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees) has agreed that under these persistent circumstances, we can no longer hold the federations in a state of uncertainty,” she said. “We are therefore informing that Barbados is unable to host CARIFTA 2021.”

Bahamas Aquatics president Algernon Cargill said they support the decision by Barbados to cancel the championships.

“It’s very disappointing, but certainly understandably, the health of our athletes is more important to me than swimming in a swim meet,” Cargill said.

“And given the challenges regionally with COVID-19 and Barbados with these volcanoes in St Vincent and due to the fact that we don’t want to conflict with school or external exams, I think the correct decision was made to cancel CARIFTA.”

Forde, who released a press statement, said their aquatic centre has been closed for three weeks due to heavy ash fall from the La Soufrière Volcano eruption in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Although the pool was scheduled to reopen on Monday, the spike in COVID-19 has made it difficult for the BASA to still think about hosting the championships. “There continues to be spikes in the COIVD-19 pandemic in many of our neighboring states and this has added concern for the Ministry of Health in relation to CARIFTA being a regional tournament,” she said.

“The rescheduling of the Caribbean Examination Council’s examinations has also created an added challenge. This, too, has made it difficult to identify a date that would be suitable to host the competition.”

Cargill said the Bahamian swimmers will no doubt be disappointed because they were training for the past two years for the highlight of the regional competition, but they will provide the opportunity for the local swimmers to compete once it is feasible to do so.

Bahamas Aquatics, according to Cargill, is now preparing to stage its National Swimming Championships from June 24-27 at the Betty Kelly Kenning Swim Complex. As they have done with all of their meets this year, there will be no fan participation.

“It promises to be a very exciting meet to look forward to,” Cargill proclaimed. “That would give our swimmers the opportunity to swim very fast right here at home.”

The Nationals will serve as the last chance for Bahamian swimmers to earn their berth to compete in the postponed 2020 Olympic Games that will be held from July 23 to August 8 in Tokyo, Japan.

A number of those swimmers were in action over the weekend s they participated in the 2021 UANA Tokyo Qualifier in Clermont, Florida.

“We had for example, 14-year-old Marvin Johnson swimming against Olympic qualifiers and in the process, he was able to set a national record as the first Bahamian in his age group to swim under two minutes in the 200m free,” Cargill said. “That’s incredible for such a young swimmer.”

Nigel Forbes, Izaak Bastian, DeVonte Carey and Lamar Taylor all had outstanding swims. So it was a great meet for the Bahamas and it gave them a chance to swim against their friends from he region and also gave them q chance tp see where they are in qualifying for the Olympic Games.”

This weekend, the local swimmers will get a chance to get back in the pool to compete in the Blue Waves Invitational at the BKKSC. The meet was rescheduled after a recent Covid-19 scare t St Anne’s High School where the club is based.