David Mc Leod and Jabari Bap­tiste lead a 33-mem­ber team which de­parts to­day to com­pete at the 29th Carif­ta Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships from Mon­day to Sun­day at the Pisci­na Olimpi­co Roly Bis­lik, Oran­jes­tad, Sa­vane­ta, Aru­ba. The duo are com­ing off of im­pres­sive per­for­mances at the Am­a­teur Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion Na­tion­al Long Course swim meet which was held in March, in which they earned qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the Nan­jing, Chi­na Youth Olympic by bet­ter­ing qual­i­fy­ing times in the 15-17 boys 50m freestyle.

Mc Leod won the event in 23.98 while Bap­tiste took sil­ver in 24.20 sec­onds as they both dipped un­der the B stan­dard qual­i­fy­ing time while at­tain­ing Carif­ta A and B marks as well.

Al­so in the squad are Ja­da Chai of At­lantis, the stand­out swim­mer at the long course event with no few­er than 12 Carif­ta qual­i­fy­ing times at­tained, Arieos Aquat­e­chs' Kristin Julien, who has al­so se­cured a tick­et to Chi­na.

How­ev­er, the lo­cal con­tin­gent's chances of de­thron­ing cham­pi­ons Guade­loupe has been hit with the ab­sence of a key swim­mers which ac­cord­ing to head coach Mark Pouchet will be tough to over­come as he re­mains op­ti­mistic about their ti­tle chances.Speak­ing yes­ter­day on the eve of the team's de­par­ture Pouchet said, "This year we are with­out sev­en of our top swim­mers who brought in 23 of the 47 medals we won last year in Ja­maica in­clud­ing Dy­lan Carter, Joshua Ro­many, Alexan­dria Don­ahue, Ty­la Mar­tin, An­dre Goin, Joshua Ramkissoon and Re­bec­ca Mar­shall, so go­ing for the ti­tle will be dif­fi­cult."Ac­cord­ing to Pouchet, ?"Some of the swim­mers have gone past the age-lim­it for the Carif­ta Games while the oth­ers have com­mit­ments. How­ev­er, in the case of Don­ahue's who at­tends Plant Se­nior High School, in Flori­da she opt­ed out of the Carif­ta meet bea­cuse she has ac­cel­er­at­ed her course work in or­der to grad­u­ate one year ear­ly from high school.

"She needs to fin­ish up all of her class­es by May 1, in or­der to meet the re­quire­ments and ear­li­er this week she signed schol­ar­ship doc­u­ments for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da, where she com­mit­ted to swim in Au­gust 2014, join­ing fel­low T&T swim­mer Chris­t­ian Paul Homer," he said.How­ev­er, Pouchet said the team still had a good crop of swim­mers who will do the team well.

"We do have qual­i­ty in Jabari Bap­tiste, Kristin Julien and David Mc Leod , all Youth Olympic qual­i­fiers. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Ja­da Chai is ex­pect­ed to pick up medals and fill part of the void left by the last year's top swim­mers."He added, "The team has been pre­pared well and we ex­pect per­son­al bests and medal win­ning per­for­mances from 95 to 100 per cent of the swim­mers. We are al­so on­ly field­ing re­lays in three of the six age-groups and re­lays of­fer dou­ble points so we start be­hind there."Over­all, Pouchet said the team has a good chem­istry and the swim­mers will be primed to give of their best in the events they are tak­ing part in.Asked his over­all aim for the team, Pouchet while not cer­tain of de­thron­ing Guade­loupe, was adamant his team was strong enough for a top five fin­ish. We are al­so hop­ing to see some swim­mers step up with their per­for­mances, he end­ed.

T&T Carif­ta Swim­ming Team

Open Wa­ter

13-14 Boys: Chris­t­ian Mars­den, Kael Yorke, James Gillette

15-17 Boys: Ji­van Chee Foon, An­drew Gillette, Kyle Carac­ci­o­lo

15-17 Girls: Syr­i­ah David, Theana Hay, Sha­nia David

Swim­mers

11-12 Girls: Ja­da Chai, Jah­mia Harley, Vris­nelit Fau­re, Deshor Ed­wards, Sab­ri­na David

11-12 Boys: Gabriel By­noe, Aqeel Joseph, Josi­ah Duke, Luke Gillette, Jae-Hwa Lee Wing, Jean-Marc Grander­son

13-14 Girls: Ami­ra Pil­grim

13-14 Boys: Justin Sam­lals­ingh, Kael Yorke, Chris­t­ian Mars­den, Os­aze Ri­ley, James Gillette, Jeron Thomp­son, Dario Omiss, Christo­pher Mo­hammed

15-17 Girls: Kris­ten Julien, Ariel Cape, Syr­i­ah David,

15-17 Boys: David Mc Leod, Jabari Bap­tiste, Jeron O'Brien, Jonathan Farah, Joshua Ramkissoon

Tech­ni­cal staff: Mark Pouchet (swim­ming coach), Hazel Haynes (open wa­ter coach), Bri­an Wick­ham (as­sis­tant coach), Cha­beth Haynes (as­sis­tant coach), Shas­tri Sankar (man­ag­er).