Veteran swimmer Sierrah Broadbelt, 17, will conclude her CARIFTA campaign as part of Cayman’s 40-athlete delegation set to compete at the 2026 CARIFTA Aquatics Championships.
The championships, set for 3-8 April in Martinique, will mark Broadbelt’s fifth and final year competing at the regional aquatics competition, where she will once again return as a female captain.
“I’m really excited. I believe that we have a really strong team … I know that we’ll do a really good job this year,” Broadbelt said.
In addition to Broadbelt, the athlete leadership team will also feature Jack Clark-Terrell as male captain, Sienna Romer and Calvin Hitt as open water captains, and Maureen Kohler as artistic swimming captain.
Broadbelt’s reduction in events
For her final appearance at the championships, Broadbelt has opted to reduce her workload by focusing on less events.
“This year I chose a fewer number of events. Normally I do around 10, but this time I’m doing six. I think that this is better for me so I can focus on my times rather than points. So, this year, I probably won’t get high point winner that I’ve gotten consecutively throughout most of the years at CARIFTA but [my main focus] is my times and getting faster,” Broadbelt said.
“I hope to mainly get personal bests and get close to or hopefully maybe break some CARIFTA records,” she added.
From first to last CARIFTA
Reflecting on her first CARIFTA and what the event means to her now, Broadbelt said, “I’d say my first one was definitely a lot of pressure as CARIFTA is looked upon in Cayman swimming as, like, ‘the meet’.
“I was definitely nervous going into that, but growing throughout all of them, I started to gain confidence and as I started getting nominated for other meets, competing on the international stage, I looked at CARIFTA as kind of like my little fun one.”
Despite this personal view, she admitted the nerves are still present “because you never know anyone can come out and beat you”.
“I’m feeling some nerves going into this year’s competition because last year there were some fast swimmers and I know a lot of people have been training hard, but I have as well. The underlying pressure and nerves I feel mainly comes from just wanting to perform well,” she added.
As a veteran amongst a young squad, she expressed a desire to lead by example by “making sure I’m listening to my coaches, behaving appropriately and giving advice to all the little ones”.
She wants to ensure that none of them “are feeling left out”, but instead that “they feel confident and not nervous, especially for some of the younger ones as it’s their first one”.
The full Cayman squad
The full Cayman delegation consists of athletes competing across swimming, artistic swimming, and open water disciplines.
This roster follows a highly successful 2025 campaign where Cayman secured 34 medals – 14 gold, 11 silver, nine bronze – and set eight national records.
Jacky Pellerin, technical director of the Cayman Islands Aquatic Sports Association, described the 2026 squad as a young team currently in a period of transition.
“Like all other head coaches, my expectations are really high for the team, but I have to be realistic. We have a quite young team [in transition]. We are turning over from the last past three years where we had more [top performing swimmers] to now having a younger group, but they are also doing really well,” Pellerin said.
A promising quality he observed about the Cayman delegation is that they maintain a strong connection with one another despite representing different local swimming clubs.
Also referencing the coaching staff, Pellerin said, “We have four professional coaches, and they have great experience, all of them, so I’m really certain that they will do [and have done] their best to make their kids ready for competing and swimming fast.”
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