St Vincent and the Grenadines swimmer Shane Cadogan swam to a third place finish and the bronze medal at the recently concluded CARIFTA Swimming Championships held in Barbados over the Easter weekend. His third place time was achieved in the 50-metre breaststroke event in a time of 30.32 seconds. Shane also qualified in the 100-metre breaststroke and the 50-metre butterfly, where he finished in 8th position in both events. SVG swimmers have now won medals at CARIFTA swimming for seven straight years.

The 2019 CARIFTA Swimming Championships was concluded on the evening of Tuesday, April 23, after four consecutive days of highly competitive age group swimming. The event featured over 300 of the Caribbean’s best swimmers from 21 countries.

St Vincent and the Grenadines sent a team of eleven swimmers, its largest number of CARIFTA qualifiers to date. In the girls teams were Kevern Dasilva, Mya Defreitas, Abigail Deshong, Kenice Green, Tia Gun-Munro and Jamie Joachim. The boys team consisted of Shane Cadogan, Aaron Defreitas, Bryson George, Alex Joachim and Eltonte’ Leonard.

Team SVG had some fantastic swims throughout the event and were able to get 7 of the 11 swimmers to achieve individual finals in 13 different events.

2018 Carifta gold medalist, Alex Joachim competed in his first year of the boys 15 to 17 years age group. Up against boys two years his senior, Alex was able to make it to the finals in the 200-metre breaststroke (7th position) and 200-metre butterfly (6th Position). Alex set a new SVG record in the 200-metre butterfly with a time of 2 minutes and 19. 75 seconds.

Shane Cadogan receiving his Bronze medal for 50m breaststroke.

In the boys 11 to 12 years age group, Eltonte’ Leonard successfully made it to three finals – the 200-metre breaststroke (7th position), 50 Butterfly (7th position), and 100 breaststroke (8th position), and in the 13 to 14 years age group Bryson George got a finals spot in the 100-metre breaststroke (8th position)

The girls representing SVG also made their mark on the event, with long distance specialist Mya Defreitas finishing 6th in the 400 meters freestyle and 7th position in the 800 meters freestyle in her first year competing in the 13 to 14 age group.

Attending her first ever CARIFTA competition, Kevern Dasilva was swimming in the first year of the 11 to 12 age group and proudly made the finals and finished a respectable 7th place. Kevern was SVG’s first swimmer to make it to the finals in her first year of eligibility.

Abigail Deshong, also attending her first CARIFTA, swam in the second year of the 11 to 12 age group and completed the 50 metre butterfly final, finishing in 6th position.

In a release, the SVG Swimming Federation said it was proud and pleased with the outstanding performances and effort of its young athletes.

“We continue to see improving performances and we have seen a fine group of young swimmers being developed.

“We thank our partners and sponsors, including the National Lottery, the National Sports Council, FLOW, CGM Gallagher Insurance Broker, the National Olympic Committee and our international governing body, FINA. Without their continued support, SVG could not compete at the CARIFTA Games level, the release said.