The future of water polo in T&T is very strong. Coming off the heels of an outstanding display at the Carifta 2025 Water Polo Championships in Coral Springs, United States, Ryan Smith, the head of the delegation, gave this assurance mere moments after the team was celebrated at a reception, on their return Monday night, at the Diplomatic Lounge of the Piarco International Airport .
Led by a solid preparation programme under coach Andrew "Birdman" Francis, the T&T team, comprising an Under-16 boys and girls, and U-19 boys and girls, and a co-ed U-14 team, returned home with five medals-three gold and two silver.
There was victory for the U-19 boys with a 24-11 win over Curacao, while in the girls' equivalent, T&T trounced the Cayman Islands 12-3. Among the U-16s, there was victory for the girls over the Cayman Islands 12-7, followed by a 13-10 triumph over the same team for the gold medal.
The U-16 boys later clobbered South Florida 14-5 before securing the country’s second gold medal. The third gold medal came from the country’s U-19 boys' team, with both the U-19 girls and the U-14 co-ed teams bringing home silver medals. Smith said their overall target was five gold medals, but still, the players did the country proud.
“We are very proud of the athletes and their performances over the weekend and their commitment. They made us very proud doing well winning the three gold medals and the two silver medals. Perhaps we could have wished for a little more gold, but we are very proud of them nevertheless,” Smith told Guardian Media Sports.
“Our performance with the U-14s was quite good. We missed out on our goal by two gold medals. That one I knew was going to be close because the Bahamas is very strong in that age group. Our U-16 males performed exceptionally well; they went beyond what we expected. I think they found themselves as well. I think they weren’t expecting to do so well, I think they surprised themselves.
“Our U-19 males, while it may not have been as close as the U-14s, were strong. Once we had our team and we knew who we had, we knew we were going to be strong with the U-19 males. Our U-19 females were a little iffy; we weren’t sure if they were going to have a competition or not, and we pulled that together later on. So that U-19 female team, we had to pull up some of our younger players, even some from U-14 and U-16s. As you know, the females, in terms of quantities, they’re a little less in the older age group, so we’re now building, so we had to pull a lot of the U-14s and U-16s girls to make up that team.
“And in the U-16 female team, we have the numbers, but again we had to pull a lot of the U-14 to make the U-16 female, and they were strong as well, so it looks like the future for the female development in water polo is very strong,” Smith assured.
Before their achievements, the team had to train at three different venues to garner pool time, skipping from the Flying Fish pool to the St Anthony’s pool, and the National Aquatic Centre in Balmain, Couva, to conduct sessions weekly.
The young athletes will now set their sights on the Carifta Games, the Central American and Caribbean Games (CAC), the Pan American Junior Games, and other tournaments for junior and senior athletes next year.
