Saint Lucian swimmers hold their own at BASA International

A highly motivated contingent of twenty competitive Saint Lucian swimmers,

comprising twelve from The Rodney Heights Aquatics Club, and eight from the

Sea Jays Swim Club competed in the Barbados Inter-club International over the

May 30 to May 1 May 2008 weekend.

The Saint Lucians took part in the event which was swam at the Barbados

Aquatic Centre, and swam away with one gold medal, four silver medals, and

nine bronze medals.

Siona Huxley of RHAC brought home the lone gold medal in her favorite event,

the 50-metre Backstroke in a time of 33.20 seconds.

She also placed second in the 100-metre Back with a time of 1:15.29 seconds,

and in the other races she was a finalist in, were the 50-metre Free and the 50-

metre Breaststroke placing sixth and eighth, respectively.

Runako Daniel of RHAC was the star of the team with a phenomenal seven

medals, one silver and six bronze in the Boys 11-12 Age Group.

His lone Silver was in the 100-metre Breaststroke in a time of 1 minute 27.90.

The Bronze medals came in the 50-metre Back (34.47 seconds), 50-metre Breast

(39.96 seconds), 100-metre Back (1 minute 17.00 seconds), 100-metre Fly (1

minute 13.63 seconds), 50-metre Fly (31.33 seconds), and 50-metre Free (29.05

seconds).

Runako’s other finals were in the 200-metre Individual Medley (4th place), and

the 100-metre Free (4th Place).

Thalia Bergasse of Sea Jays Swim Club captured her club’s lone two medals,

silver in the 50-metre backstroke, and bronze in the 50-metre Fly with times of

40.43 seconds, and 39.57 seconds respectively in the Girls 9-10 Age Group.

Thalia’s other finals was in the 100-metre (5th place) and 200-metre Free (8th

place).

Jonathan Calderon won the silver medal in the 15-and-over 50-metre Backstroke

with a time of 29.56 seconds, and his other finals were the 50-metre Free and

the 50-metre Breast, placing fifth in both.  

Jon L Innocent and Eamon Ashworth of RHAC rounded of the medal table with

bronze medals in the 100-metre Breast and 100-metre Free, with times of 1

minute 20.73 seconds, and 1 minute 01.55 seconds, respectively

In the team standings, Rodney Heights Aquatics placed 12th and Sea Jays Swim

club placed 16th out of 21 participating teams from Barbados, Trinidad, Grenada,

Aruba and Saint Lucia

Coaches for the RHAC and Sea Jays team Jamie Peterkin and Karen Beaubrun

expressed satisfaction with the swimmers performance while also identifying

areas for improvement.