Broth­ers Joshua and Abra­ham Mc Leod, along with Kristin Julien are among the 230-plus ath­letes who have reg­is­tered to par­tic­i­pate in the fourth edi­tion of the Sea Hawks New Year, which splash­es off for the first time at the Mar­lins 50m swim­ming pool, Morne Co­co Road, West­moor­ings, on Sun­day from 9 am.

This meet is the first for 2013, and is a qual­i­fi­er for the Carif­ta Swim­ming Cham­pi­onship, Caribbean Is­lands Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships (CISC) and the FI­NA World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships.

With the de­ci­sion last year by the Am­a­teur Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (ASATT) to on­ly ac­cept times swum in a long course (50m) pool to qual­i­fy for the afore­men­tioned meets, the venue has been changed from the Dr Joao Have­lange Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence Swim­ming Pool, Ma­coya, to give ath­letes an ad­di­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty to qual­i­fy.

The meet is ex­pect­ed to be high­ly com­pet­i­tive with most of the coun­try's top ath­letes par­tic­i­pat­ing. Abra­ham and Joshua Mc Leod of At­lantis Aquat­ics will be in ac­tion for the first time since com­pet­ing in De­cem­ber's FI­NA World Short Course Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships in Rus­sia. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Kristin Julien of Ti­tans Swim club will al­so make her first swim for 2013, af­ter qual­i­fy­ing in De­cem­ber for the 2013 World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships in Dubai.

Twelve Clubs will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in this one-day af­fair and fol­low­ing their his­toric vic­to­ry in De­cem­ber at the ASATT In­vi­ta­tion­al, hosts Ti­tans will be hop­ing to con­tin­ue with their win­ning ways for this first meet of the year as de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons.�

How­ev­er, it will not be easy sail­ing for them as they are ex­pect­ed to face a fierce chal­lenge from Tidal Wave Aquat­ics, Mar­lins Swim Club and Blue Dol­phins.

The meet fea­tures all the in­di­vid­ual events in swim­ming ex­cept the 100m in­di­vid­ual med­ley. Com­peti­tors are re­strict­ed to swim a max­i­mum of five events. There are al­so five mixed re­lay events on the day. High Point tro­phies will be award­ed based on the ag­gre­gate FI­NA scores of ath­letes in their best four events.�

Tro­phies will be giv­en to the top eight swim­mers in ten & un­der, 11-12 and 13-14 age groups.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, tro­phies will be giv­en to the top swim­mers in the eight & un­der, 15�17 and 18-and-over age groups, and 15-and-over swim­mers falling with­in the top ten over­all that do not re­ceive 15-17 or 18-and-over awards.�

Spe­cial awards will be pre­sent­ed to the top three re­lay teams in the com­pet­i­tive re­lay events, top FI­NA point swims in the six age groups, and the top three clubs.