Sports tourism has been a topic of much discussion in the
recent past and it appears to be paying off.
Just this week we have marathon swimmer Penny Palfrey
bridging the Cayman Islands. On Monday she broke the record by six seconds
swimming from Cayman Brac to Little Cayman when she crossed the five-mile wide
Bogue channel in 1:53:28.
Next on the agenda is a nearly 68-mile swim from Little
Cayman to Grand Cayman, scheduled to start early Thursday.
If you haven’t been following her progress, we encourage you
to do so at www.caycompass.com where there will be links to follow her as she
is tracked by GPS. She is trying to beat the longest solo unassisted ocean swim
of 63 miles by swimming the 68 miles between Little Cayman and Grand Cayman.
While Palfrey is in our waters, she is giving the Cayman
Islands some great exposure. Folks from her native England and in her home of
Australia are keeping tabs on her trip.
And she has a worldwide following that she messages just
about every day. Everyone who is anyone in the swimming world is watching Penny
Palfrey and the Cayman Islands this weekend.
Her swim will be followed by the Flowers Sea Swim on 18
June, an event that gets more and more international attention each year. The
swimming events are just the latest to tout sports tourism for the Cayman
Islands and come on the heels of Cedrus Investments Cayman Islands Open Squash
Tournament, the visit of the 2011 lineup of Garmin-Cervelo cycling team,
NORCECA volleyball, the boxing programme, footballers who attract coaches and
teams and the CARIFTA track event held here last year.
Those are just a few of the highlights of what sports
tourism can do for the Cayman Islands. When those athletes come to our shores,
they often bring along family members and spend money here as well as attract
international media attention.
Palfrey should be swimming up to the beach between Morritt’s
and the Reef Resort in East End Friday afternoon. We wish her luck and urge
residents and visitors to turn out and watch as she sets a new world record.
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