By Neto Baptiste
The coach of the national swim team, Wayne Mitchell, is hoping their success at the recent OECS Swimming Championships held in St Lucia has strengthened their argument for the construction of a national pool here in Antigua.
Antigua and Barbuda captured the OECS title after having amassed 1,111 points at the Rodney Heights Aquatic Center in Gros Islet, with the hosts finishing a close second with 1,018 points.
Mitchell believes the young swimmers are continuing to advocate, in a positive way, for the attention the sport deserves.
“These kids, they are aware of it; they want it so badly and it’s just a massive thing, not just for them but for Antigua, and it has really put us on the map. We do suffer from [the lack of] facilities and I don’t want to drag on that too much because we know it’s there and we do know that we are getting help now. I think this will obviously kickstart that and help as well, to get people more serious towards contributing to that,” he said.
“We went to a facility just now where we were saying that this is one of the best facilities in the OECS over there in St Lucia. Everybody wants to go there to have the OECS there because the hotels are close by, the facility is [top class] and … I’d just like to see that for Antigua,” he added.
It is the first time in the championships’ 30 years of existence that Antigua and Barbuda is lifting the trophy and the 32-member squad and management staff celebrated in grand style, taking several laps around the pool and jamming to Antigua and Barbuda music.
“When they announced that it was us … we just jumped in the air and everybody was excited and throwing the flags around. We started hearing the buzz that we had gotten it so we started putting on our tracksuits with the Antigua and Barbuda flag at the back and getting ready to run around that pool. We did a record in laps, we did the most laps around that pool, more than any other winner. We just kept running around, dancing, and the kids got hold of me and they threw me in the pool; it was just fantastic,” Mitchell said.
The coach also highlighted what he labelled the “huge sacrifice” made by parents to ensure the swimmers are funded and well equipped to represent the twin-island state.
“The parents make a huge sacrifice and a lot of the time they go unlooked or un-thanked, but we made sure that before we went to the pool, on every occasion, we had meetings to really pump the kids up and continuously thanked the parents. We’re a tight community even though we have like three clubs; we all come together well. It was like one team, it wasn’t segregated throughout the three clubs and they really bonded well,” he said.
Grenada grabbed bronze with 956.50 points with St Vincent and the Grenadines amassing 841 points in fourth position. St Kitts & Nevis were fifth with 61 points and St Maarten finished sixth with 5.50 points.