Swimming takes plunge in Union Island primary schools

TWENTY GRADE 3 students drawn from the Stephanie Browne Primary School and the Mary Hutchinson Primary, the two primary schools on Union Island, are part of the first cohort of the teaching of swimming as a sport on the island.

Utilising the swimming pool facility at the Kings Landing Hotel, the initiative to introduce swimming formally to the students, is an undertaking of recently appointed sports officer for the Southern Grenadines, Rickydene Alexander.

A certified swimming coach, and who is the founder of the Blue Marlins Swim Club, Alexander told SEARCHLIGHT that he has an opportunity to spread the sport to the Southern Grenadines, thus offering more persons to learn to swim competitvely.

He was quick to point out that despite the students are natural swimmers, because they are exposed to the sea, “Swimming in the sea is different from the pool”.

Alexander noted that as beginners, the students are engaged in “learning the proper techniques of the sport”. “As we go on, they would learn of the various strokes in swimming and hopefully, we would see some new national champions coming through,” Alexander projected.