Increased Registration Ahead Of Open Water Championships

Registration is up ahead of this year’s national Open Water Swimming Championships slated for Sunday at Fort James Beach.
Close to 70 swimmers have already registered for the event, an increase on the 48 participants in 2016 and, according to technical director of the Antigua and Barbuda Swimming Federation (ABSF) Edith Clashing, additional athletes are expected to register for the event.
“Right now we have a registration of 64 and we may have one or two more. This year is better than last year because last year the numbers were pretty low where we were down to about 48 so I am happy to see the numbers creeping up and I am still getting one or two calls for persons to get in at the last minute,” she said. 
Swimmers competing in the 5k race, according to Clashing, could qualify for the Carifta Open Water Championships. She gave a breakdown as to how Sunday’s meet will be structured.
“The race starts at the far end of Millers by the Sea and you have to go past them for the start point. It’s going to be a triangular course for 600 metres and then we go out 300 metres, come back 300 metres and then it’s 100 metres in and out and that will make up the course for all of the races,” she said.
“The 1.4 is going to do one loop of it, the 2.6 is going to do two loops and the 5 will do three loops,” Clashing added. 
The federation, Clashing revealed, will be introducing a number of new initiatives starting with this year’s event, as they seek to further promote open water swimming.
“We want to promote open water swimming; we want to grow open water swimming and because of that we are tagging on a little festival to it because we have a fun relay at the end which is sort of a build-up towards an open water festival that we hope to have some time next year, so at the end of the actual championships we will be having a relay made up of a 600k swim, a 1.4 kayak and a 1.4k stand-up paddleboard race,” she said.
The Open Water Swimming Championships will start at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday and swimmers are being asked to gather at 9:00 a.m. for prep.