Tidal Wave Aquat­ics mer­maid Syr­i­ah David and Sea Hawks' Napoleon How­ell es­tab­lished new na­tion­al records at the Short Course End-of-Year Tri­als of the Am­a­teur Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (ASAT&T).

The tri­als were con­duct­ed on De­cem­ber 22 and Wednes­day at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence Swim­ming Pool, Ma­coya. David con­clud­ed her spec­tac­u­lar year in the pool by eras­ing the 1992 girls' 11-12 age-group na­tion­al record in the 400m freestyle. The Caribbean Is­lands Swim­ming Cham­pi­onship gold medal­list touched the wall in 4:40.12 just eclips­ing the 18-year-old record of for­mer na­tion­al swim­mer Sangee­ta Puri of 4:40.41.

David has had an ex­cel­lent year achiev­ing Short Course records in the 200m but­ter­fly, 100m in­di­vid­ual med­ley, 400m in­di­vid­ual med­ley, and now the 400m freestyle. How­ell, a fresh­man at St Cloud State Uni­ver­si­ty in Min­neso­ta, es­tab­lished a new 18 and Over na­tion­al record in the 50m breast­stroke. A CISC gold medal win­ner in the 50m and 100m breast­stroke events sur­passed his own Ju­ly 2010 record of 29.55 sec­onds, reg­is­ter­ing a new mark of 29.34. How­ell how­ev­er failed to break the open record of 28.76 sec­onds, which is held by 15-17 swim­mer Abra­ham Mc Leod. At the re­cent­ly held ASATT In­vi­ta­tion­al ear­li­er this month, How­ell es­tab­lished a new Long Course Open 50m breast­stroke record of 29.82, eras­ing the five-year-old ark of Nicholas Bovell of 29.88.

In the 13-14 age-group, Jonathan Ramkissoon of Sea Hawks and Jonathan Gillette of Mar­lins came per­ilous­ly close to eras­ing the Ryan Rigues held 50m breast­stroke mark of 31.16. Ramkissoon touched the wall in 31.24 sec­onds while Gillette reg­is­tered a 31.31. Bay­lor High Stu­dent and Blue Dol­phins' Kim­ber­lee John-Williams al­so just missed out on na­tion­al record in the 100m back­stroke. A mul­ti­ple na­tion­al and re­gion­al record hold­er, John-Williams stopped the clock on 1:05.97, just miss­ing the 2005 record of Ayeisha Col­ly­more of 1:05.75.

Vris­nelit Fau­re of Tidal Wave Aquat­ics came close to record time in the girls' Eight & Un­der 50m breast­stroke. The na­tion­al Short Course record hold­er in the 200m in­di­vid­ual med­ley and Long Course record hold­er in the 50m breast­stroke sped home in 42.74; just off the 1994 Soben­na George held record of 42.20. Swim­ming ac­tion re­sumes in the New Year on the Jan­u­ary 23, 2011 as Man­ta Ray Swim Club hosts its first ever swim meet at the Mar­lins Swim Pool in West­moor­ings. This would be fol­lowed by the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence Sea Hawks who hosts their 2nd New Year Splash at Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence on Jan­u­ary 30.