T&T Olympic Games swim­mers Dy­lan Carter, 28, and Cherelle Thomp­son, 31, have both been in­clud­ed in the 37-mem­ber T&T swim­ming team se­lect­ed for the 37th Carif­ta Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships to be staged in the Ba­hamas from March 30 to April 2.

How­ev­er, while swim­mers over the age of 18 will be pre­sent­ed with medals for their top three plac­ing in the 50-me­tre and 100m races at the four-day com­pe­ti­tion, they will not be al­lowed to con­tribute to­wards their team’s over­all medal or points tal­ly as the events will be con­sid­ered ex­hi­bi­tion swims.

Last month, Carter se­cured two gold medals and one sil­ver in the first In­ter­na­tion­al Co­pa Quere­taro in Mex­i­co.

The San­ta Clara, Cal­i­for­nia-born Carter was sec­ond in the men’s 50m but­ter­fly in 23.68 with 44-year-old Brazil­ian world record hold­er Nicholas San­tos win­ning in 23.47 sec­onds.

How­ev­er, Carter end­ed on a high when he won the 50m freestyle in 22.34 sec­onds and al­so won the 100m freestyle in 50.00 sec­onds flat.

In Jan­u­ary at the FI­NA Aquat­ics World Cham­pi­onship, Carter was fifth in the 50m but­ter­fly af­ter a clocked 23.17 sec­onds in the fi­nal, fol­low­ing times of 23.16 and 23.15 in the pre­lim­i­nary heats and semi­fi­nal, re­spec­tive­ly, while he placed 15th in the 100m freestyle semi­fi­nal in 22.01 af­ter a time of 21.95 in the heats.

Thomp­son al­so com­pet­ed at the FI­NA meet and placed 38th in the women’s freestyle in 26.03 and 41st in the 50m but­ter­fly in the Ba­hamas both ex­pe­ri­enced T&T swim­mers will be us­ing the meet as part of their prepa­ra­tions to­wards up­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al out­ings, name­ly the Olympic Games in Paris, France.

No­table ab­sen­tees for the T&T swim­ming con­tin­gent will be the USA-based duo of world ju­nior 50m freestyle cham­pi­on Nikoli Black­man, who now at­tends the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee, and Zarek Wil­son, now at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­aba­ma due to school com­mit­ments as the Carif­ta meet clash­es with the NCAA Di­vi­sion I Men’s Swim­ming and Div­ing Cham­pi­onships which comes off at the In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty Nata­to­ri­um in the Unit­ed States.

Last year, T&T led by Black­man, a three-time Com­mon­wealth Youth Games gold medal win­ner, Wil­son, who al­so won three medals at the CYG and USA-based duo of Liam Car­ring­ton and Liam Roberts, sparked T&T to a third-place fin­ish at the 36th Caribbean Free Trade As­so­ci­a­tion Aquat­ics (Carif­ta) Cham­pi­onships at the Enith Brig­itha Swim­ming Pool of the Cen­tro De­porti­vo Ko­r­sou in Cu­ra­cao.

The lo­cal swim­mers, un­der the guid­ance of head coach Mark Pouchet and his ex­pe­ri­enced as­sis­tants, Paul Newal­lo and Anil Roberts, the for­mer Min­is­ter of Sports, tal­lied 54 medals (22 gold, 16 sil­ver, and 16) for 534 points to fin­ish be­hind de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons the Ba­hamas who cap­tured 85 medals (37 gold, 27 sil­ver, and 21 bronze) for 1,113 points while Cay­man Is­lands fin­ished in the sec­ond spot with 53 medals l (25 gold, 16 sil­ver, and 12 bronze) for 752 points.

The show­ing by T&T marked an im­prove­ment on their fifth-place show­ing from 2022 in Bar­ba­dos, where they at­tained 355 points to fin­ish be­hind Ba­hamas who re­tained its stran­gle­hold on the ti­tle with 975 points, with Ja­maica a dis­tant sec­ond with 833.5, Cay­man Is­lands, third with 754 and host Bar­ba­dos, fourth with 519.

In Bar­ba­dos, T&T rep­re­sent­ed by its small­est con­tin­gent ever of 13 swim­mers won 35 medals (11 gold, 11 sil­ver, and 13 bronze) with Black­man cop­ping the 15-17 High Point Age-Group, and FI­NA High Point awards.

The Cay­man Is­lands topped the medal ta­ble with 57 (25 gold, 23 sil­ver, and nine bronze), while Bar­ba­dos was sec­ond with 41 (22 gold, sev­en sil­ver, and 12 bronze), Ja­maica was third with 64 (17 gold, 25 sil­ver, and 22 bronze), Ba­hamas fourth with 65, the most medals over­all (14 gold, 22 sil­ver, and 29 bronze).

A win­ner of 15 medals last year, Car­ring­ton, Roberts, An­pherne Bernard, Aaron Siewlal, and Dar­ren Bel­fon will be the main medal hope­fuls among the boys while Aimee Le Blanc, Zara Per­si­co, Ty­la Ho-A-Shu and Amari Ash will spear­head the medal hunt among the girls.

T&T Carif­ta swim team

Girls:

11–12: Zara Per­si­co, Ma­ri­na Mar­tinez, Tay­lor Marchan, Za­lay­har Lewis

13–14: Asia-Marie Pouchet, Aimee Le Blanc, Alyssa Reid

15–17: Zuri Fer­gu­son, Ty­la Ho A Shu, Ly­la Browne, Amari Ash, Amelia Ra­jack, Syd­ney Look Fong, Keira Au­dain

18 & Over: Cherelle Thomp­son, Or­nel­la Walk­er, Gabrielle Vick­les, Zoe An­tho­ny

Boys

11–12: Ethan McMil­lan-Cole

13–14: Jaden Mills, Jonathan Sam­bra­no, Aaron Colthrust, Ale­jan­dro Agard, Aaron Siewlal, Joshua Sam­bra­no

15–17: Lian Car­ring­ton, Dar­ren Bel­fon, Zachary An­tho­ny, Liam Roberts, An­pherne Bernard, Evan Gillard Bruce, Isa­iah Alexan­der

18 & Over: Dy­lan Carter, Aqeel Joseph, Chris­t­ian Awah, Jo­hann-Matthew Mata­moro, Rique­lio Joseph

Team of­fi­cials: Mark Pouchet (head coach), Anil Roberts (as­sis­tant coach), Deronn Sam­lals­ingh (as­sis­tant coach), Paul Newal­lo (as­sis­tant coach), Kei­th Mata­moro (man­ag­er), Si­mone Sam­bra­no (chap­er­one), Lilas Solomon-Stu­art (chap­er­one).

Open Wa­ter team

Girls:

14–15: Aimee Le Blanc

16 –18: Amelia Ra­jack

Boys

14–15: Mar­cus Alexan­der, Adam Scoon, Ale­jan­dro Agard

16–18: Zachary An­tho­ny, Isi­ah Alexan­der, Khadeem Brath­waite

Team of­fi­cials: Mau­rice Faria (head coach), Lilas Solomon-Stu­art (man­ag­er/chap­er­one)