The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

TO show appreciation to their swimmers for tremendous performances in 2014, the Bahamas Swimming Federation will hold its inaugural Gala Awards Banquet at the Melia Nassau Beach Resort on Saturday, March 14.

And then on Sunday morning at the Betty Kelly Kenning Swim Complex, one of the nominees, Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, her coach American David Marsh and members of the SwimMac Carolina, North Carolina, will host a clinic for local swimmers. The group is expected to be in town to support Vanderpool-Wallace at the awards banquet.

“Last year, the Bahamas won the CARIFTA Swimming and placed second on the Carifta Water Polo, the first time in the history of our federation we succeeded in dethroning the swimming powerhouses in the Caribbean,” said federation president Algernon Cargill as he announced plans for the event at a press conference yesterday at Atlantic Medical.

“We made it to Carifta because of the financial support of our government of the Bahamas that chartered a Bahamasair plane and provided funding for our Carifta team. Our largest corporate sponsor was Subway Bahamas Limited and John Bull was also a huge help and we are also thankful to our additional sponsors that included BTC, CIBC FirstCaribbean, Commonwealth Bank and others.”

During the games, Cargill said Joanna Evans was the toast of the Bahamas team, winning every freestyle event over the five days of competition from the 50 metres to the 800m as well as the 5K open water swim event to cart off the most outstanding athlete award.

From Carifta, Cargill said the Bahamas sent a small team to the Caribbean Island Swimming Championships in Barbados where they placed fourth overall with outstanding swims from their juniors along with Ariel Weech, the lone Bahamian female in the 18-and-over category.

Vanderpool-Wallace, however, highlighted the year by becoming the first Bahamian athlete in any sport to win four gold medals, two with national record-breaking performances, at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Mexico, while Evans posted outstanding swims in both the 400 and 800m and a national record in the 200 fly.

Just prior to that, Vanderpool-Wallace, Evans and Dustin Tynes all posted national records at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, where Vanderpool-Wallace also claimed the Bahamas’ first and only medal in swimming with a silver in the 50m fly.

Cargill said the federation has been so pleased with these performances and others that they are delighted to put on the awards banquet.

Pamela Crispo, chairperson of the organising committee for the banquet, said their swimmers made the Bahamas so proud and it is the best way to acknowledge them in such a special way. They have planned a red carpet event that will have the Bahamas’ first female Olympian Nikia Deveaux and parent Darren Bastian as the co-mistress and master of ceremonies.

“We want to recognise where swimming has come from at the very beginning with Nikia being our very first Bahamian female Olympian and coach Andy Knowles as our first male,” Crispo said. “We really want to go back to where swimming got started in the Bahamas and where it is really going.

“I think we are overshadowed many times by other sports and we’re definitely going to make every year to show that this is not just a once in a lifetime thing, but it is something that will be continued and we know that our swimmers will continue to do good things in the future.”

The event will have a four-course meal with tickets priced at $50 for children under-12 and $75 for persons 12-and-over. Interested persons wishing to purchase tickets are urged to contact executives of the BSF or email bahamasswimmingawards banquet@gmail.com for further information.

Zelda Allen, committee member and assistant secretary of the BSF, released the names of the male and female nominees in the various categories. However, she disclosed that the nominees for the 8-and-under boys and girls divisions, will be revealed next week.

• Nominated in the various categories are as follows:

Girls 9-10 - Katelyn Cabral, Madison Mortimer, Mandia Roberts, Charlotte Russell and Zaylie-Elizabeth Thompson

Girls 11-12 - Cecily Bowe, Tenniya Martin, Amber Pinder and Virginia Stamp

Girls 13-14 - Ceclia Campbell, Jasmine Gibson, Lilly Higgs and Margaret Higgs

Girls 15-17 - Joanna Evans, Doran Reed, Simone Sturrup and Andreas Weech

Girls 28-and-over - Miriam Crispo, Bria Deveaux, Shaunte Moss, Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace and Ariel Weech

Boys 9-10 - Gabriel Encinar, Roman Pinder and Lamar Taylor

Boys 11-12 - Izaak Bastian, T’Lez Foulkes, Samuel Gibson, Darren Laing, Peter Morley and Tristan Thompson

Boys 13-14 - Miller Albury, William Russell, Alec Sands and Joshua Wong

Boys 15-17 - Dionisio Carey, Alexander Encinar, N’Nhyn Fernasnder, Gershwin Greene, Kohen Kerr, Keith Lloyd, Joshua Rigby, Meshach Roberts and Dustin Tynes.

Boys 18-and-over - Vereance Burrows, Evante Gibson, Anibal Hernandez Valdes, Matthew Lowe, Michael McIntosh, Laron Morley and Armando Moss.

Cecile Greene, also a member of the organising committee, said every time that they expose their swimmers to international meets, it will cost the federation some big dollars.

“So the idea behind the banquet is to recognise the achievements of our swimmers, attempt to rise the profile of swimming and get the necessary financial funds that we need to travel, to get the accommodations and to outfit our kids even when they travel so that we can look like a team,” Greene said.

“The kids only get the competition by being exposed to competition and therefore, we need to have funds to allow them to go to Carifta and CAC and other meets out there. We always compete at the regional level, but we have never competed with a national team in the US and we are hoping to find a meet in the US where we can expose our kids too during the course of the summer.”

Stephanie Sands, another committee member, thanked those companies who have already come on board to sponsor the banquet, including John Bull, Super Value, Wendy’s Old Fashion Hamburgers, Nassau Motors and Bahamas Bus and Truck. Sands said they delivered about 60 letters to companies and they are hoping to get their support.

Once the banquet is completed, Cargill said they are pleased to have been able to secure through the assistance of Vanderpool-Wallace, coach Marsh and her teammates at SwimMac, who will conduct a swimming clinic at the Betty Kelly Kenning Swim Complex 10am March 15.

“Their trip here is partly sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism and what they have agreed to do is to not only assist with the awards banquet, but they believe in giving back too,” Cargill said.

“At the clinic, they will be instructing our swimmers on how to win, how to swim better, how to swim competitively and how to become an Olympic swimmer.

“We believe this is a great opportunity for our swimmers to be exposed to someone like a Ryan Lochte, who has won many Olympic and world medals in swimming and who is also one of the new faces in swimming in the United States, perhaps to replace a Michael Phelps who is nearing the end of his career and Cullen Jones, who is the American record holder in the 50m freestyle and holds the distinction of being one of the few African-American males to win the US trials and win Olympic medals.”