Published On:Thursday, March 18, 2010

TWELVE-year-old Dionisio Carey and 14-year-old Dustin Tynes were the only two swimmers representing the Bahamas at the 2010 Florida Gold Coast Swimming Junior Olympic Championships, in Coral Springs, Florida.

The meet, held March 12-14, featured over 600 of the top age-group swimmers from The Florida Gold Coast Swimming Inc. and was a short course yards meet.

Each athlete is eligible to swim up to seven events if qualified and both Dionisio and Dustin proved to be more then qualified.

In his seven events, Dionisio was a perfect seven for seven, winning every race. As a result, Dionisio won the meet's high point award by scoring a maximum of 77 points.

In the process, he broke the FGC meet and open records for the 50-yard butterfly with a time of 25.59. This time was the third fastest 50-yard butterfly recorded by any 12-year-old in US swimming.

His other gold medals were recorded in the following: 100- yard butterfly (58.35), 50-yard breaststroke (30.08), 100- yard breaststroke (1:06.51), 50-yard backstroke (28.24), 100-yard backstroke (1:00.45), 100 individual medley (59.93).

Teammate Dustin Tynes, just after his 14th birthday, faired well despite being the youngest 14-year-old at the meet. For his efforts, Dustin brought home three medals - one silver and three bronze in the following events:

Silver, 200-yard breaststroke (2:15.79), bronze 50-yard breaststroke (28.09), bronze 100-yard breaststroke (1:02.78).

Dustin also had personal best times in three other events, the 200-yard individual medley (2:11.02) 9th, 50-yard freestyle (25.25) 33rd, 100-yard freestyle (55.86) 40th.

Both swimmers are members of the Barracuda Swim Club and senior coach Michael Stewart chose to send them as a warm-up for the 2010 CARIFTA swimming championship in Jamaica early next month.

"I feel these two young athletes will be the corner stone for the medal haul next month for the Bahamas at the CARIFTA Championships, as well as the foundation for Bahamas swimming in major international meets for years to come," he said.