Dolphins eyeing massive 2021 splash

Dolphins Swim Club have already begun working towards making their third annual event in 2021 – a regional and international meet.

President and founder of Dolphin Swim Club, Harold Lewis, said he had written to inform the president of the Barbados Aquatic Sports Association, Cheryl Lady Forde, of his intention.

Lewis revealed this during a telephone interview with Barbados TODAY, against the backdrop of a successful staging of the second edition Dolphin Swim Club meet held last weekend at the National Aquatic Centre.

“Already I have written to the Aquatic Sports Association. I wrote a letter to the President informing them I would like to have the meet on the last weekend of October,” Lewis said.

“The idea for this is that we are hoping to attract swimmers coming out of Boston, Connecticut, New York, Canada and the region. Also, across the region in Antigua, Grenada, St. Lucia and so on, that we can have a larger event.

“And the idea is to give our swimmers here in Barbados an opportunity to swim against persons that they have not seen before. That is something they will have to face when they go to CAC (Central America and Caribbean Championship) and Commonwealth Games.

“So we want them to be comfortable knowing they are always in the environment of people who they don’t train next to but they are competing against.”

DSC, which was founded in 2003, has 56 members and Lewis said he was pleased with the number of participants who competed this year.

He said there has been a few changes and improvements to the meet which augured well for the future.

“The number of entries has improved, I would also say that we were able to recognise the area to improve on from last year,” he explained.

“That included the ability to have athletes transition in a faster format. Also, we went from two days to three days allowing the swimmers to have more rest between events.

“This year we included three events. Last year we did not have the 400m freestyle, 400 individual medley or the 800m freestyle. So we included those three events and went from a two-day meet to three days.

“The response was welcomed and as I said the swimmers recognised that they would now have a little more time between swims which would give them more recovery.”

Cognisant of the new environment and challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lewis said there had been adjustments to accommodate health protocols.

“The first adjustment would be the path or route of travel, in that the logistics of the swim meet forces us to use the stairway closer to Sagicor as only the entrance to the deck and not as returning to the stand. So that the path or route swimmers take, we have adjusted that to ensure it is easily accessible for all,” he said.

“We also reduced the number of people over by the area you check into before you go to do your event. So we reduce the number of persons that were there and all the swimmers did seem to follow the instructions.

“We give instructions to swimmers, coaches and managers based on the COVID requirements to control how they proceed.”

Initially, the just concluded meet was scheduled for the last weekend in October but based on advice from the COVID health authorities, club officials decided to push the event a couple of days back.

“We had a meeting with the COVID unit and based on the requirements, it was suggested that we needed a bit more time to have everything in place especially for the officials,” Lewis continued.

“We had to ensure the officials were wearing both masks and face shields. Also, we had to ensure the officials had enough time to recognise what the new requirements were for them.

“That forced us to push back the date to the next available one which was after short course nationals and that proved to be successful.”

He added: “It was an opportune time for us to capitalise on the short course national this year. It gives assurance to the parents and the swimmers that we can safely have an event here in Barbados without any disruption based on the onset of COVID.”

morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb