A his­toric del­e­ga­tion of over twen­ty Mas­ters ath­letes from Trinidad and To­ba­go will dive in­to the pres­ti­gious Bar­ba­dos Open Wa­ter Swim Fes­ti­val, which splash­es off on Wednes­day and con­cludes on Sun­day.

This marks the largest in­ter­na­tion­al show­ing by T&T Mas­ters swim­mers since the ground­break­ing LATy­CAR (Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Mas­ters) event in Fort Laud­erdale in 1999.

​This pow­er­ful con­tin­gent in­cludes swim­mers from clubs across the twin-is­land re­pub­lic, ex­pa­tri­ates, and two de­vel­op­ing age-group swim­mers who train un­der the men­tor­ship of the Mas­ters com­mu­ni­ty.

They will unite with hun­dreds of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ath­letes in the pris­tine wa­ters of Carlisle Bay for a five-day com­pe­ti­tion, ca­ma­raderie, and cel­e­bra­tion span­ning the 1.5K, 3.3K, 5K, and 10K dis­tances.

​Fu­elling the open wa­ter move­ment

​“This is a pow­er­ful mo­ment for Mas­ters swim­ming in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” said Tehe­li Sealey, Team Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. “Our ath­letes have been train­ing con­sis­tent­ly through their clubs—es­pe­cial­ly Trin­i­ty Mas­ters Swim Club, which meets week­ly at Mara­cas Bay. The dis­ci­pline, ca­ma­raderie, and joy in this com­mu­ni­ty are tru­ly in­spir­ing.”

​The team’s prepa­ra­tion in­clud­ed a re­cent open-wa­ter train­ing ses­sion at Mara­cas Bay with the Trin­i­ty Mas­ters Swim Club. Trin­i­ty Mas­ters, found­ed in 1984, is T&T’s old­est Mas­ters club and a pas­sion­ate ad­vo­cate for open wa­ter de­vel­op­ment, even wel­com­ing age group swim­mers in­to its ses­sions.

​The del­e­ga­tion proud­ly rep­re­sents a wide range of lo­cal clubs, in­clud­ing Spe­cial Olympics Trinidad and To­ba­go, Sea Hawks Swim Club, Trin­ba­go Mas­ters Swim Club, Mar­lins Swim Club, To­ba­go YM­CA, and T&T Aquat­ics.

​Bar­ba­dos 2025 Line­up: T&T Ath­letes and Events

1.5K Swim Sat­ur­day, No­vem­ber 8: Al­ice Besson, Mixi Men­doza, De­mi Pouchet, Joann Barsa­tie-Am­mon, Shinelle Pad­more, Ali­na Dhanoolal, Kei­th Daniel, Trent Bethel (Spe­cial Olympics), Pri­or Be­har­ry, David Milne, Tyrrel Ce­les­tine (Age Group), Bib­iane Eva Klaus

3.3K Swim Sun­day, No­vem­ber 9: Wendy Am­mon, Mixi Men­doza, Kei­th Daniel, David Milne

5K Swim Sun­day, No­vem­ber 9: Jacque­line Jod­han, Tehe­li Sealey, Al­ice Besson, Trent Bethel (Spe­cial Olympics), Apol­lo Ar­joon, Bib­iane Eva Klaus

10K Swim Sun­day, No­vem­ber 9: Alexan­dra Carr (Age Group), Jens-Ul­rich Pop­pen, William Carr, Tyrrel Ce­les­tine (Age Group), John Pro­cope, Chelsea­ia Char­ran, Tim­o­thy Sinanan

​Mas­ters Mo­men­tum:

A Post-Pan­dem­ic Surge (2022–2025)

​Mas­ters swim­ming in Trinidad and To­ba­go has ex­pe­ri­enced a sig­nif­i­cant surge since 2022, with ath­letes con­tin­u­al­ly mak­ing waves both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly:

​Ju­ly 2022: Sev­en­teen ath­letes rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Pan Am Aquat­ics Mas­ters Cham­pi­onships in Medel­lín, Colom­bia, of­fi­cial­ly reignit­ing in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion.

​Sep­tem­ber 2022: Four Mas­ters swim­mers, in­clud­ing en­durance cham­pi­on John Pro­cope, made their first bold at­tempt to swim from To­ba­go to Trinidad, spark­ing na­tion­al in­ter­est.

​An­nu­al­ly (Oct 2022–May 2025): The pop­u­lar Sub­way Mara­cas Open Wa­ter Swim events saw grow­ing Mas­ters par­tic­i­pa­tion across all dis­tances, par­tic­u­lar­ly among fe­male swim­mers in the 5K.

​Ju­ly 2023: Eight swim­mers com­pet­ed at the FI­NA World Mas­ters Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships in Japan, with two se­cur­ing top ten fin­ish­es in their events.

​Ju­ly 2024: T&T proud­ly host­ed the Pan Am Aquat­ics Mas­ters Cham­pi­onships in Cou­va, where lo­cal ath­letes earned mul­ti­ple medals.

​Oc­to­ber 2024: John Pro­cope suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the leg­endary To­ba­go-to-Trinidad swim on his fourth at­tempt. Sep­a­rate­ly, six oth­er ath­letes rep­re­sent­ed T&T at Ocean­man Cu­raçao.

​Au­gust 2025: Eight ath­letes com­pet­ed at the FI­NA World Mas­ters Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships in Sin­ga­pore, with sev­er­al achiev­ing top ten place­ments.

​Sep­tem­ber 2025: Trin­i­ty Mas­ters host­ed its largest-ever “5 to 5 Swim” from Five Is­lands Cale­do­nia to Five Is­lands Ch­aguara­mas.

​Oc­to­ber 2025: Pro­cope con­tin­ued to push bound­aries with an at­tempt to swim around the is­land of To­ba­go.