With local swimmers continuing to break through globally, Steve Broadbelt, president of the Cayman Islands Aquatic Sports Association, is looking to maintain the momentum.
Coming off of Cayman’s most successful CARIFTA Swimming Championships to date, Broadbelt told the Compass that throughout the three islands, there are many potential superstars waiting to be found.
“We can’t just have a one-off every 10 years, or a standout every 10 years. Cayman is capable of producing standout swimmers on a regular basis,” Broadbelt said.
One of those standouts, Jordan Crooks, who has been crushing the NCAA competition after becoming Cayman’s first world champion in December, when he took gold in the 50-metre freestyle.
Other swimmers like Lila Higgo, Sierrah Broadbelt, Alison Jackson, Harper Barrowman and Jordan’s sister Jillian Crooks have also turned in standout performances over the last several months.
Broadbelt believes that training more kids to swim from an early age will enhance the possibilities of producing the next Cayman star.
“A lot of our swimmers are learning to swim too late,” he said. “We need to start them two or three years earlier and a small portion of those will go down the competitive path and then we’ll have a broader [group of] athletes.”
Broadbelt highlighted the recent launch of the Swim Free initiative to promote swimming among young children in Cayman. However, he said there needs to be more done when it comes to local high schools.
“We have to do a lot,” he said. “With John Gray High School, Clifton Hunter and obviously what the Flowers Group is doing [with Swim Free], everything is coming together and all the things are pointing in the right direction.”
One thing that is slated to break ground later this year is the 50-metre pool. Broadbelt noted that without the Olympic-sized pool, Cayman athletes are still among the best in the world.
“What impresses me most, is that the top five teams [at CARIFTA] all have 50m pools and we are the only team in the top five that doesn’t,” he said. They are getting nervous. They know when we get a 50m pool… they have a target on their back, and we are coming for them.
“Another thing – the top five teams have populations of over 1 million people – Jamaica, Bahamas, Trinidad, Barbados – and we have less than 100,000 and we are still able to produce the level of talent that we have.”
Broadbelt said that, in government schools, swimming should be included in the curriculum, noting that a six-week programme every year isn’t going to cut it, if we want to continue to produce elite Caymanian swimmers.
“All children [should be] required to swim in order to graduate from high school,” he said. “These kinds of things, even from an open-water safety standpoint, but there’s a spin off from that, with a competitive advantage.”
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