Nigel Si­mon

USA-based, Dy­lan Carter es­tab­lished a new meet record as T&T won four gold medals in a haul of 12 on the open­ing night of the 28th edi­tion of the Caribbean Free Trade As­so­ci­a­tion (Carif­ta) Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships, at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um Pool, In­de­pen­dence Park, Kingston, Ja­maica on Sat­ur­day night.

The 16-year-old Carter splashed home in the 15-17 100 me­tres but­ter­fly in 55 sec­onds to bet­ter his own record of 55.79 set last year in Ba­hamas, to com­plete a string of three straight gold medals swim for T&T. A dis­tant sec­ond was Ba­hami­an Zuhayr in 55.66 sec­onds while Carter's team-mate, Joshua Ro­many took bronze in 56.80.

The oth­er gold medal win­ners for T&T in the 22-na­tion cham­pi­onships which al­so in­cludes wa­ter po­lo and Open Wa­ter Swim­ming were Adri­an Goin, Ty­la Mar­tin and the 15-17 boys 400 me­tres freestyle re­lay team an­chored by Carter.

Goin was the first re­cip­i­ent of gold for T&T, in the 13-14 100m but­ter­fly, touch­ing the wall in 1:00.53 ahead of Suri­name's Cedric Blok­land (1:00.87) and Jesse Wash­ing­ton (1:01.17) of Bermu­da.

Mar­tin kept the mo­men­tum go­ing when she al­so struck gold in the 15-17 100m but­ter­fly, in 1:03.32 ahead of Zab­ri­na Hold­er of Bar­ba­dos (1:04.73) and Zara Bai­ley of Ja­maica (1:04.87).

The 15-17 boys 400m freestyle re­lay quar­tet of Emiro Goosen, Jabari Bap­tiste, Ro­many and Carter then blew away the com­pe­ti­tion as they struck gold in 3:33.73, a new Games record to erase the 2009 mark of 3:34.07 which was held by Mar­tinique. Suri­name swam to sil­ver in 3:40.41, and Ja­maica, third in 3:41.56.

The T&T swim­mers al­so bagged three sil­ver and four more bronze medals to trail Guade­loup's 16 medals (four gold, nine sil­ver, three bronze) at the top of the medal ta­ble.

Alexan­dria Don­ahue swam to sec­ond in the 15-17 girls 200m breast­stroke in 2:43.05 to de­ny Ja­maican duo Zara Bai­ley (2:41.37) and Bre­an­na Ro­man (2:44.14) a one-two fin­ish.

Ja­da Chai got sil­ver medal in 1:10.24 in the 11-12 girls 100m but­ter­fly as Guade­loupe's Luisa Bel­lon (1:10.13) touched the wall just ahead of her and third placed Annabelle Lyn of Ja­maica (1:10.96) while in the 11-12 boys 100m but­ter­fly Kael Yorke was sec­ond in 1:04.63 be­hind Yael Touw Ngie Tjouw of Suri­name (1:04.33), with Yan­nis Lerid­er of Mar­tinique third in 1:06.34.

Re­bec­ca Mar­shall added to T&T's medal tal­ly with a bronze in the 15-17 girls 50m back­stroke in 32.15 to trail Guade­loupe's Ma­rine Darx (32.04) and Suri­name's Bri­ennne Ren­furm (32.11) home and in the boys equiv­a­lent, David Mc Leod (27.79) edged out coun­try­man, Jabari Bap­tiste (28.12) for bronze be­hind Ja­maican Tim­o­thy Wyn­ter (27.09) and Ba­hami­an, Dion­i­sio Carey (27.62).

In the 15-17 boys 200m breast­stroke, Jeron O'Brien al­so col­lect­ed his first medal when he swam in­to third be­hind Aruban Jordy Grot­ers (2:22.79) and Dustin Tynes of Ba­hamas (2:23.48). O'Brien's team-mate Jonathan Ramkissoon was fourth in 2:32.99.

The 11-12 boys 400m freestyle re­lay team of Jeron Thomp­son, Marc An­tho­ny Beck­les, Kyle Sir­ju and Yorke got the oth­er bronze in 4:16.37 with Mar­tinique (4:05.05) and Ja­maica (4:12.39) tak­ing gold and sil­ver re­spec­tive­ly.

In­ter­mit­tent pow­er cuts put a damper on Sat­ur­day's evening ses­sion for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 min­utes, but could not stop T&T from end­ing the day on top with 186 points, six ahead of two-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, Guade­loupe while host Ja­maica is next with 160 fol­lowed by Aru­ba (152), Ba­hamas (140), Mar­tinique and Bar­ba­dos with 103 each and Suri­name, eight points be­hind.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port in the Ja­maica Ob­serv­er News­pa­per, a faulty break­er at the fa­cil­i­ty was the cause of the de­lay and there was no stand­by gen­er­a­tor, as that is too ex­pen­sive, rang­ing in the re­gion of $50,000 per hour, used or un­used.

Fol­low­ing a colour­ful open­ing cer­e­mo­ny show­cas­ing the par­tic­i­pat­ing teams, the lights first went at 6.44 pm at the con­clu­sion of the sec­ond fi­nal of the night. A few more fi­nals ran off very quick­ly be­fore the sec­ond elec­tric­i­ty fail­ure at 7.12 pm. Pow­er re­turned af­ter an­oth­er 17 min­utes de­lay.

Oth­er fi­nal­ists in In­di­vid­ual events on the first day of com­pe­ti­tion were as fol­lows:

Girls:

13-14 800m freestyle: 8th Sha­nia David

15-17 800m freestyle: 4th Syr­i­ah David; 7th Theana Hay

11-12 200m breast­stroke: 4th Vris­nelit Fau­re

11-12 50m back­stroke: 5th Ja­da Chai

13-14 50m back­stroke: 4th Ariel Cape

13-14 100m but­ter­fly: 6th Ami­ra Pil­grim

400m freestyle re­lays:

13- 14: 6th (Jew­el Mul­rain, Sha­nia David, Ariel Cape, Ami­ra Pil­grim)

15 - 17: 4th (Ty­la Mar­tin, Syr­i­ah David, Alexan­dria Don­ahue, Re­bec­ca Mar­shall

Boys:

13-14 1500m freestyle: 5th Chris­t­ian Mars­den: 7th Kyle Carac­ci­o­lo

15-17 1500m freestyle: 9th Emiro Goosen

11-12 200m breast­stroke: 4th Jeron Thomp­son

13-14 50m back­stroke: 5th Justin Sam­lals­ingh; 6th Revash Ram­ta­hal

400m freestyle re­lays:

13 - 14: 4th (Adri­an Goin, Aaron Acres, Kyle Carac­ci­o­lo, Os­aze Ri­ley)

Medals stand­ings:

Teams G S B T

Guade­loupe 4 9 3 16

T&T 4 3 5 12

Aru­ba 4 3 3 10

Ja­maica 4 2 5 11

Suri­name 3 4 0 7

Ba­hamas 3 2 5 10

Bar­ba­dos 3 2 3 8

Cay­man Is­lands 2 0 0 2

Mar­tinique 1 1 3 5

Bermu­da 1 0 1 2

Grena­da 0 1 0 1

French Guiana 0 1 0 1