Barbados’ last-ditch gold rush has brought their medal tally at the 29th CARIFTA Swimming Championships to 31.
Led by gold medal swims from Hannah Gill, Christian Selby and Danielle Titus, the ultramarine and gold duly wrapped up sixth place at the after capturing seven medals on the final day of competition in Aruba.
Competing at the Roly Bisilik Pool on Friday night, Team Barbados secured three golds, a silver and three bronze medals to end with 437.50 points and finish behind champions The Bahamas while the hosts came in second.
Selby capped his 15-17 Bboys’ age group title by winning the 400 metres freestyle in four minutes, 4.70 seconds.
Teammate Alex Sobers (4:09.05) copped bronze in that same event.
Hannah Gill then took the Girls’ 15-17 division after clocking 4:32:05 to beat out the likes of Bahamian Albury Higgs (4:39:55) and Aruba’s Florence Kock (4:40:34).
The event proved a highly successful one for the Bajans as Damon St Prix, competing in the 13-14 Boys’ division, earned the bronze medal (4:19:56) behind Guadeloupe’s Samuel Marinette (4:10:24) and hometown boy Patrick Groters (4:13:86).
Titus waited for the meet’s final event – the 200 metres backstroke – to account for Barbados’ other gold medal when she made light work of her competition in the 11-12 Girls’ division with a 2:33.55 showing.
Her prelim time of 2:32:24 was a new age group record for Barbados, erasing the mark Inayah Sherry set in 2010.
Swimming in her CARIFTA swansong, Zabrina Holder was the only Barbadian on the night to capture a medal in the fastest event in the pool after tying with Trinidad’s Kristin Julien for second in the 50 metres freestyle in a time of 27.23 seconds. Bahamian Joanna Evans won the race with 27.01.
Holder ended second in the 15-17 Girls’ age group with 40.5 points, while Titus came third in the 11-12 division with 46 points.
Mckayla Treasure swam a personal best of 2:32:49 in the 200 backstroke to take the bronze behind the Cayman Islands’ Lauren Hew (2:29:14) and Shannon Hassell (2:31:63) of Bermuda.
Earlier, Gill was awarded the FINA High Point Trophy for her swim in the 800 metres freestyle which earned 708 FINA points.
Barbados were slated to be represented by Alexis Clarke, Nicholas Hall and Kobi Talma in yesterday’s 5K Open Water swim. (JM/PR)
