Bea­con In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny has thrown its sup­port be­hind the de­vel­op­ment of youth swim­ming by in­vest­ing some $40,000 in­to the Sec­ondary Schools Swim Meet which is be­ing host­ed by Tidal Wave Aquat­ics Swim Club.The 11th an­nu­al meet will be held at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence Swim­ming Pool, Ma­coya, on Sun­day.Hazel Haynes, man­ag­er and head coach of Tidal Wave Aquat­ics stat­ed, "For the past two years Bea­con has been as­sist­ing tidal wave aquat­ics in fund­ing and de­vel­op­ing am­a­teur swim­mers at the sec­ondary swim meet."

She al­so added, "The meet is ex­pect­ed to have over 500 stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing from dif­fer­ent zones across the re­gion in­clud­ing To­ba­go. De­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Fa­ti­ma and St Joseph Con­vent are keen to de­fend their ti­tles and main­tain their brag­ging rights."The meet will con­sist of two cat­e­gories com­pet­i­tive and non-com­pet­i­tive. Stu­dents will be clas­si­fied in­to dif­fer­ent age-groups con­sist­ing of 12-and-un­der, 13-14 and 15-and-over.Sec­re­tary of the am­a­teur swim­ming as­so­ci­a­tion Gary Morales com­mend­ed Haynes and Tidal Wave aquat­ics for their in­volve­ment in sec­ondary school swim­ming.

He said, "Most de­vel­op­ment for young swim­mers be­gins at the club lev­el where as in a sec­ondary school swim meet, stu­dents get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete against all dif­fer­ent swim­mers."Rawl Pad­more of Tidal Wave stat­ed that stu­dents get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op to be top na­tion­al swim­mers from com­pet­ing in sec­ondary school swim meets.Trea­sur­er of Tidal Wave Aquat­ics, Na­tal­ie O'Brien, thanked Bea­con for com­ing on board and stat­ed that there was "no sup­port from the Min­istry of Sport".She ex­pressed to have a swim meet with over 500 stu­dents is very ex­pen­sive, stat­ing that the fi­nances giv­en from Bea­con will be used for rent­ing the fa­cil­i­ty and pur­chas­ing medals and tro­phies.