Steve Broadbelt, the new president of the Cayman Islands Aquatic Sports Association, has outlined plans for developing swimming over the next four years. In an interview with the Cayman Compass, Broadbelt set out his short- and long-term goals.
Short term
Expanding the Lions Aquatic Centre
My immediate goal is to continue the development for our 50-metre pool. That has been an ongoing project for a while, but we are at a very advanced stage, and we have had a lot of support from the Cayman Islands government.
Grow upcoming disciplines
I’ve seen a lot of growth within all the disciplines of the sport. Artistic swimming has just exploded on the scene and is becoming extremely popular. Water polo could be easily developed here as well.
Recruit more Caymanians from government schools
Clifton Hunter, they have their own pool, and we’d love to see that get utilised more. So, we’re going to make a strong push for John Gray and then Clifton Hunter… there is already a great programme in Cayman Brac as well, but we are definitely seeing missed opportunities. We want to build our national team with athletes that could represent the Cayman Islands, and this is a big step in that direction.
New programmes
We’re going to start… a junior life-saving programme. It’s like a beach sport and it’s focussed on fitness in life-saving but there is also a competitive element to it, where they race to complete rescue-based tasks. So, you’ll start to see that along Governor’s Beach.
Long term
Introducing diving
The area that we are not engaging in, is the diving. The only reason for that is we need a separate pool that is much deeper. We need a separate dry land gymnasium with trampolines, but we would like to see it in the future.
Open-water events to gain more recognition
We have the Flowers one-mile swim, which is one of the most-well-known events in the whole world, that attracts athletes from all over. We had the Canadian time trials down here before, and we want to build on that where we can actually have a FINA-certified open-water event as well.
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