Nigel Si­mon

This coun­try's swim­mers will de­part for Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos to­day where they will be hop­ing to wrest the 30th Carif­ta Swim­ming Cham­pi­onship and Open Wa­ter ti­tle from ti­tle-hold­er Ba­hamas.

The four-day swim­ming com­pe­ti­tion takes place Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Wildey from to­mor­row un­til Tues­day while the Open Wa­ter events is card­ed for Carlisle Bay, St Michael on April 8.

Head­ing the swim­ming con­tin­gent will be the quar­tet of Ja­da Chai, Kael Yorke, Jeron Thomp­son and Justin Sam­lals­ingh as they seek to re­claim the ti­tle.

The four swim­mers were all gold medals win­ners in the T&T team which end­ed third last year in Aru­ba with 37 medals (16 gold, 12 sil­ver, nine bronze).

Ba­hamas cap­tured the ti­tle with 56 medals (24 gold, 22 sil­ver, 10 bronze) while Aru­ba with 53 (16 gold, 18 sil­ver, 19 bronze) was third.

Back to boost T&T's chances of top­pling its ri­vals are USA-based Ty­la Mar­tin, who par­tic­i­pat­ed at the 2013 World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships and An­dre Goin, both of whom had missed last year's stag­ing of the event due to oth­er com­mit­ments.

Al­so in the trav­el­ling team are for­mer Carif­ta cham­pi­ons Ami­ra Pil­grim and Jabari Bap­tiste, while in the Open Wa­ter cat­e­go­ry which comes off on April 8, top T&T ath­letes, Chris­t­ian Mars­den who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Pan Amer­i­can Men's Cham­pi­onship, Sha­nia David and her sis­ter Sab­ri­na are this coun­try's top medal hopes.

Cha­beth Haynes is coach of the swim team while Hazel Haynes heads the Open Wa­ter coach­ing staff.

In ad­di­tion to host Bar­ba­dos, and T&T, oth­er coun­tries ex­pect­ed to com­pete at the match which is a FI­NA ap­proved qual­i­fi­er of the XVI FI­NA World Cham­pi­onship in Kazan, Rus­sia in­clude Ba­hamas, Ja­maica, Bermu­da, Aru­ba, Guade­loupe, Mar­tinique, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Cay­man Is­lands, Cu­ra­cao, St Lu­cia, French Guiana, St Vin­cent and The Grenadines, Suri­name, US Vir­gin Is­lands, Grena­da, Turks & Caicos.

Car­i­fi­ta Swim­ming & Open Wa­ter team

Swim­ming

11-12:

Girls: Jah­mia Harley, Ja­da Cha­toor, Adri­an­na Good­ing, Keona Yorke, Nao­mi Pat­ter­son

Boys: Aqeel Joseph, Adri­an James

13-14:

Girls: Ja­da Chai, Racine Ross, Maris­sa Dick­son, Vris­nelit Fau­re

Boys: Jeron Thomp­son, Kael Yorke, Gra­ham Cha­toor, Luke Gillette

15-17:

Girls: John­nya Fer­di­nand, Ami­ra Pil­grim, Ariel Cape, Ty­la Mar­tin

Boys: Jabari Bap­tiste, Adri­an Goin, Os­aze Ri­ley, Bradley Thomas, Emil Gion, Justin Sam­lals­ingh, Kyle Carac­ci­o­lo

Tech­ni­cal staff: Cha­beth Haynes (coach), Mau­rice Faria (as­sis­tant coach), Lau­ra Good­man (as­sis­tant coach), Bertram Black­man (chap­er­one), Ly­der George (chap­er­one)

Open Wa­ter:

13-14:

Girls: Chis­ara San­tana, Sab­ri­na David, Raven Re­nee-Tony

Boys: Gabriel By­noe, Gra­ham Cha­toor, Se­bas­t­ian Marc­hand

15-17:

Girls: Sha­nia David, Bri­ana Pat­ter­son, Toni Pierre

Boys: Chris­t­ian Mars­den,

Tech­ni­cal staff: Hazel Haynes (coach), Kim San­tana (chap­er­one)