Waterworld

The Unión Americana de Natation (UANA) along with the International Swimming Federation (FINA) is working on several developmental programs for athletes, coaches and technical officials especially those in the Caribbean region.

President of UANA Maureen Croes, the first female in the continent and the lone person from Aruba with the distinction of holding that position, says that they are working on further implementation of development programs to raise the level of aquatics in the region.

“Each national federation has the opportunity to request clinics and the facilitator is somebody that FINA assigns. It comes down to each federation making a choice as to what they want addressed. For example if Barbados right now is trying to work on developing the swimming programme, maybe they would request a clinic for coaching swimming.

“One of the other programmes is specifically for pool swimming and artistic swimming, FINA has a certification workout program available in which the participants can get certified for the coaching degrees. All of these things are implemented to hopefully bring the level of aquatics in our region to a higher standard,” Croes said.

During a telephone interview with Barbados TODAY, Croes stated that Caribbean athletes continue to make a name for themselves and she hopes that the various governments in the region would see the importance of sports particularly swimming.

“The aquatic sport in the Caribbean region is a very prominent sport. We may not be the most popular on each of the islands because soccer and cricket are big, it grabs the people to come watch. But our athletes in the Caribbean region are making a name for themselves in aquatics on the world stage. The technical officials from our region are known for their technical expertise and their professionalism on the pool deck.

“That is very important because that means, those federations are doing a good job and I really hope that we can all work towards making the aquatics more known in the public in each of the countries so that they can get the support from the entire country. Money can’t fix everything but having the financial support of your government will help you in your development for sure. So, I hope each of the government understands the importance of sports in general,” Croes explained.

Prior to taking up the post as head of UANA, Croes also served five-years as Secretary General for the Central American and Caribbean Swimming Federation (CCCAN).

As someone who dedicates her life to swimming in several ways primarily as a coach, meet director and lead administrator, Croes would like each country in the region to recognise the importance of swimming.

“Swimming is my love, it always has been and it forever will be. Learning to swim should be a right of each and every person that is alive. It would help you in preventing drowning and it should be part of the development of a child. So, I really hope that we can get to a point that each of the countries in our region, that the government understand the importance of swimming or teaching little children how to swim, that it would help in developing children into strong, healthy adults,” she added.

UANA has 44 member countries and the majority of them compete in five swimming disciplines – pool swimming, open water, water polo, diving, and artistic swimming. Like every other international sporting body around the world, UANA has had to adjust in terms of how they connect with members because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Croes revealed that the usage of Zoom for virtual meetings in particular has drawn them a lot closer.

The position of UANA president is a four-year term and Croes is hoping that when her time is up people will look back and say there have been changes in how aquatics is organised and working together in the continent. She also believes that the discipline of open water swimming can be further developed around the Caribbean.

“I hope that the region is happy with how I am representing them and all that I am doing for the region in aquatics. I think the fact that we are surrounded by beautiful water, that is in pretty much every territory in the Caribbean, the open ocean should be able to be used for open water swimming. I think we need to try and get a bigger focus for the open water. I think we can still develop that a lot further.

“I think that the federations in the Caribbean are working hard for aquatics. I am very proud of the leadership for aquatics in the Caribbean. The fact that we are very small, each of these islands is so small compared to the bigger nations even in the Americas. Put Aruba next to Brazil or put Barbados next to the United States, it is like we are very small islands but yet we have been able to develop our aquatic sports to very high levels and that is impressive. So, I am hoping that by providing our region, the smaller federations, more opportunities that the development will show,” Croes said.

morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb