Strong Cayman swim team heads to Japan for World Championships

Swimming at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships – the sport’s biggest competition of the year – is set to get under way this weekend, with three of Cayman’s top swimmers competing at the event in Fukuoka, Japan, on 22-30 July.

Representing the Cayman Islands are Jordan Crooks, the reigning world champion in the short course 50 metres freestyle; Jillian Crooks, a Tokyo 2020 Olympian and the younger sister of Jordan; and Harper Barrowman, a 2022 Commonwealth Games finalist.

The trio, who are now in Japan preparing for the opening day of racing in the pool on Saturday, are accompanied by Seven Mile Swimmers coach Darren Mew and Cayman Islands Aquatic Sports Association technical director Jacky Pellerin.

The swimming events at these World Championships are held in an Olympic size, 50-metre pool. Diving, artistic swimming, open water swimming and water polo events are all currently ongoing in Fukuoka, having started on 14-15 July.

When (and where) to watch

Due to the time difference between the Cayman Islands and Japan, sessions of preliminary heats for each event are scheduled to be held in the evenings starting at 8:30 pm, with corresponding semi-finals or finals the following morning, beginning at 6 am.

A full events schedule, and results, can be found on the meet’s official page on the World Aquatics website, while the events and their respective start dates for each of Cayman’s swimmers are as follows:

Events and start date of their preliminary heats for Cayman’s three swimmers at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships.

Every prelims and finals session is set to be streamed live on subscription television service Peacock. Other television channels, such as CBC or NBC Sports, may carry some coverage, according to the event’s ‘Where to Watch” page, while the World Aquatics’ YouTube channel appears to have posted daily highlights of other events so far.

Meet the athletes

Read on for more about each of Cayman’s swimmers as they gear up to take on the world’s best:

Harper Barrowman

First onto the blocks for Cayman is Barrowman, 17, who will swim the heats of the women’s 400-metre freestyle in the evening (Cayman time) of 22 July. Barrowman is then scheduled to take part in the heats of the women’s 200-metre freestyle on 24 July.

In August 2022, at just 16 years old, Barrowman became the first woman in Cayman Islands swimming history to qualify for a final at the Commonwealth Games when she advanced to the women’s 800-metre freestyle final at the Games in Birmingham. Doing so, she says, has been the highlight of her career so far.

“I will never forget the cheering of the crowd as I touched the wall in my 800[-metre] final,” Barrowman said. “Worlds will be another opportunity for those incredible, almost life-altering moments, and I intend to make the most if it.”

The Seven Mile Swimmers star then found herself among Olympians when accompanying her father, Olympic champion and former world record-holder Mike Barrowman, as a guest at the 2022 USA Swimming Golden Goggle Awards in New York last November.

This season, she has competed at several short course metres competitions on-island, in addition to long-course metres appearances in Jamaica in January and at the 2023 CARIFTA Games in Curaçao in April, winning seven gold medals at the latter.

Since then, Barrowman has been training in anticipation of more personal bests and new experiences at these World Championships before she heads to the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago next month.

Jordan Crooks

For those who have followed Cayman swimming in recent months, this man needs no lengthy introduction.

Crooks, 21, followed up a record-setting 2021-22 NCAA freshman year at the University of Tennessee with more records alongside his sister, Jillian, at the 2022 edition of these long-course metres World Championships in Budapest last summer – but it was at last year’s short-course metres World Championships in Melbourne that he truly set the swimming world alight.

At those championships, in December 2022, Jordan became Cayman’s first ever medallist on the World Championship stage – and the country’s first world champion in any sport – when he won gold in the men’s 50-metre freestyle. His best time of 20.31 seconds from that meet also placed him fourth on the event’s list of all-time fastest performers, and less than two-tenths of a second shy of the current world record.

Jordan made more history at the collegiate level in his 2022-23 college sophomore year when he became the second fastest 50-yard freestyler in history earlier this year, before grabbing an NCAA title in the same event in March.

In Japan, Crooks will contest both the 100-metre freestyle heats on 25 July, and the 50-metre freestyle heats on 27 July.

“I’ve been training long course since right after this year’s NCAAs and feeling good about learning new things about racing,” he said. “Growing up training short-course metres, as well as the absence of a long-course pool in Cayman, my time at Tennessee has been the most long-course swimming I’ve had in my career.”

Motivated by his world title last December to “chase bigger and better goals” and fuelled by a recent spell of training, and racing, in a 50-metre pool, Crooks has high hopes for this next big meet.

Jillian Crooks

The Cayman Islands’ youngest Olympian in any sport following her debut on that global stage at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Jillian Crooks, 17, has most recently been training and competing with the North Carolina-based TAC Titans – a club that has produced several Team USA Olympians.

This season, after setting records alongside older brother Jordan at the 2022 World Short Course Championships in December, Jillian took down several meet records en route to seven CARIFTA gold medals in Curaçao.

As well as committing to join her older brother at the University of Tennessee in 2024, she has raced at several high level meets across the United States, including the TYR Pro Swim Series where she clocked a qualifying time for these World Championships.

Jillian will get involved in the action in Fukuoka beginning with the women’s 100-metre freestyle heats on 26 July, followed by the heats of the women’s 50-metre freestyle on 28 July.