The Barbados Amateur Swimming Association (BASA) will celebrate its 55th anniversary, the Aquatic Centre will mark its 15th year and BASA will host the 22nd CARIFTA Championships from April 5 to April 10.
In addition, Pine Hill Dairy Alpha Swim Club, the oldest swim club in the island, will mark its 40th anniversary. Long-course sponsors Bank of Nova Scotia will celebrate their 100th anniversary and short-course national sponsors Cave Shepherd
& Co. will mark their 150th year and they want to tie in their celebrations.
BASA president Sonia Oneal told the DAILY NATION they wanted to mark the milestones with special celebrations at the CARIFTA Games and the Aquatic Centre International in May.
In keeping with the celebrations, Oneal is also hoping the swimmers will make a big impact at the three major international meets – the Commonwealth Games, the Central American and Caribbean Games (CAC) and the Caribbean Island Swimming Championships (CISC).
"We want to make a fairly big impact. The qualifying times for the next Olympic Games will be out next year, and our plan is to have the swimmers qualify early instead of waiting until 2008. All they will have to do is work on reducing the time in 2008," Oneal said.
There are already signs that this could happen, with Olympic swimmers like Bradley Ally reducing their times.
The president said 2005 was a good year, both for junior and senior swimming.
"At all of the major meets, the juniors established new records, taking significant chinks out of records that had been around for a long time by people like Leah Martindale and Damian Alleyne. When you break a Leah Martindale, Damian Alleyne or Nicky Neckles record, you know you are on the up-and-up," she said.
Oneal singled out the outstanding performance of Alpha's Shawn Clarke, who broke Paul Yelle's 1984 mark of 56.40 seconds in the 100-metre butterfly and also eclipsed the 15-17 age-group record of 56.73 seconds, which was held by Damian Alleyne, when he clocked 56.32.
Meanwhile, the 15-year-old Aquatic Centre will also undergo renovations which should be completed in time for CARIFTA. These include expanding the technical area, improving the entrance to reduce congestion, tiling the bathrooms and replacing some units, replacing the fence and installing a new scoreboard.
sherrylynclarke@nationnews.com