This weekend Stingray Swim Club will be attending its first away meet for 2006, the Walter Rodgers Age Group Swimming Championships in Jamaica.
A team of 19 swimmers, led by coaches Dominic Ross and Alex Webb and team manager Melinda Robertson, with seven parents, will be away from February 16-19.
As recently as December 9, SSC visited Kingston for the 2005 Las Lic Swim Meet. Four swimmers travelled overseas to compete for the first time: Christopher Messer (7), Jackson Messer (9), Iain McCallum (7) and Bethany Cleaver (8). Unfortunately Bethany had a fall on the first day and was unable to compete. She was a real trooper and cheered on her teammates.
Over the three-day meet, 131 personal best times were posted and the meet provided some excellent races for Cayman swimmers. Particular mention must go to 15-year-old Special Olympian Andrew Smiley, who recorded personal best times in all of his swims.
National coach Ross was pleased with the results and in particular Peter Stasiuk (14) who had a fantastic 1500m freestyle swim where he took off over 1 minute from his previous PR in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic at last summer’s CCCAN Games.
Rounding out the team were veterans Lisa Rombough (17), Michael Lockwood (17) and Brett Fraser (15) along with Carolina Watler (14), Alex McCallum (11), Sai Eccles (11), Seiji Groome (12) and Alexa Robertson (13), who won the high point award for her age group.
For some of the swimmers this was their first experience in a 50m (long course) pool and for others it had been 6-12 months since they have had the opportunity to swim in a long course pool.
All of the swimmers put in a tremendous effort and the team finished 3rd overall.
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