Nearly 60 fledgling artistic swimmers will put their training to the test this weekend, while representing the Cayman Islands at the Worldwide International Invitational, held in Coral Springs, Florida.
The young synchro athletes participated in a send-off event on Saturday, 14 May, where they demonstrated many tricks in front of an audience at the Camana Bay Aquatic Centre.
According to head coach Alissa Moberg, the event was held to give the athletes an idea of what to expect during the upcoming international competition that many of the swimmers will participate in for the very first time.
“Today was our final run-through with an audience in front of us and it makes a big difference whenever you’re performing, with a little added pressure,” Moberg told the Compass. “Today was about working out the last bit of kinks in our routines; a lot of our swimmers are wearing their [new swimming] costumes.”
A total of 58 swimmers from Cayman will jump into their routines at the Coral Springs Aquatic Complex swimming pool. The athletes will be divided across the novice, intermediate, 12U and 13-15 categories.
“This is the biggest squad that we’ve ever had,” Moberg said. “Last year we had about 45 athletes… Our youngest swimmer is a 6-and-under soloist.”
Speaking about the growth of synchro in Cayman, Moberg noted that she carried a team of 10 athletes to the Worldwide International Invitational in 2016. Two years later, Cayman won the event.
Most recently, the artistic swimmers achieved a milestone, when they captured the first high point honour in history for Cayman in any sporting discipline of the CARIFTA franchise.
Now Moberg is hunting for more glory and believes, with the number of swimmers on this trip to Florida, team Cayman will win another overall title.
“I’d love for us to be the high point trophy winners and we are coming with the largest team, so it’s definitely in our scope,” she said. “We will be coming back with a lot of hardware… I want when we come back to the airport, you’ll hear us clinking before you see us.”
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