Na­tion­al swim­mer Cherelle Thomp­son con­tin­ued her quest for qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the up­com­ing Paris Olympic Games with a gold medal swim in the Girls' 15 and Over 50m freestyle at the Bar­ba­dos Aquat­ic Sports As­so­ci­a­tion 32nd an­nu­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre In­ter­na­tion­al In­vi­ta­tion­al at the Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Wildey, St Michael on Sat­ur­day.

The 32-year-old Thomp­son of Ea­gles Aquat­ics, seek­ing to earn a spot at her sec­ond Olympic Games, touched the wall in 26.07 sec­onds to take the top spot in the Girls' 15 and Over 50m freestyle ahead of Sharks St Lu­cia's Mikaili Charle­magne (27.25), and Black Sand's Ken­nice Greene who took the third spot in 27.49.

In her oth­er event at the three-day meet, which was an ap­proved qual­i­fi­er for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Thomp­son, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee grad­u­ate was 15th in the Girls 15 and Over 100m freestyle which she was us­ing a warm-up for the 50m freestyle in which she tar­get­ed the Paris Olympic Games qual­i­fi­ca­tion mark in 24.70 sec­onds for two en­tries and 24.82 for one en­try, but missed out in the end.

So far, two-time Olympian Dy­lan Carter is the lone T&T swim­mer to qual­i­fy for the Olympic Games while the men’s trio of Nikoli Black­man, the FI­NA World Ju­nior 50m freestyle cham­pi­on, Zarek Wil­son, and Gra­ham Cha­toor are all hope­ful of qual­i­fy­ing as well.