Cayman Islands artistic swimmers continued their winning ways at the Worldwide International Invitational in Coral Springs, Florida, where they earned high point honours.
A total of 58 swimmers represented Cayman, many of whom were competing abroad for the first time. However, according to junior coach Amber Barnes, it didn’t stop the youngsters from making the podium at the Coral Springs Aquatic Complex.
“Being able to coach them leading up to the meet, and seeing their hard work actually pay off… feels really good; almost every swimmer got a medal,” Barnes told the Compass.
One of the medal-winners was 13-year-old Riley Skinner, who said she was pleased with her improvements.
“I came fifth at CARIFTA,” Skinner said, noting that since then she has been practising her solo routine for an additional 30 minutes after team training.
“I came third out of six,” she said. “So, I did better than CARIFTA and I just want to keep improving and keep trying hard. I tried my best and that’s all that really matters.”
Athletes were divided across the novice, intermediate, 12U and 13-15 categories. Overall, the Cayman athletes collected the most medals during the event and the most points.
Romina Giraldo, who is one of the lead coaches on the synchro team, noted that sport continues to grow but admits that there is still work to be done.
“Definitely, these two high point trophies have shown that our programme is growing and getting much better every day,” Giraldo said. “We have a solid team now and it’s going to a different level.”
She said the goal is to produce Cayman’s first artistic Olympian swimmer and, judging by their recent success, Giraldo and her team are on the right track.
“It’s step-by-step,” she said. “Our main goal is to send a Caymanian to an Olympic Games, but it’s a long process, but we are preparing for that and hopefully we can do it soon.
“Last year we had Azania [Osborne] and Dylan [Lynee] go to the World Championships and we hope we can repeat that next year… those are the little milestones that we are achieving.”
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