At Friday’s opening of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports (MCYS) National Aquatics Centre, swimmers shared with Stabroek Sport their joy at seeing a great need filled. Many have already begun to dream of the development they will see in their future performances.
Accalia Khan is one of Guyana’s younger swimmers and has only been swimming for a few years. This 12-year-old has already begun to show promise and for her the pools mean no restriction on what she can accomplish.
At Friday’s opening it was the relief of not having to worry about pool time that was on Khan’s mind.
“I feel good because now we would be able to do two times a day training, not like at Casters [Castellani pool which they could only use in the mornings] which put us at a disadvantage when we go overseas and have to come up against persons who train two times a day for four hours when we only have one hour in the morning because of school,” Khan said. “Now that we have this we can come in the afternoons. In this pool, I want to have a gold medal next year at the Goodwill Games and I would like to go into other games overseas and not be at a disadvantage.”
Not having to worry about the added strain of performing in a 50m pool after training in a 25m pool, is another benefit that all of Guyana’s national swimmers will be looking forward to.
“I feel great that we’re going to get to practice in a 50m pool because when we go to … international competitions, they have 50m pools…,” girls’ 15 – 17 swimmer Athena Gaskin said. “It’s good that we get to train in and get accustomed to a pool that’s bigger.”
Inter-Guiana Games bronze medallist Soroya Simmons concurred.
Simmons is looking beyond the regional events, and has her sights set on the Olympic level. “I hope to go as far as I can in the Olympics with my backstroke events, so I’m working on carrying my times as low as possible and the pool will play a big part in that. The backstroke and fly are what I am focusing on and I have very high expectations of medalling in them. Now with the pool opened I think our training is going to get a lot harder but I’m looking forward to it,” she added.
It was matter of pride for an overjoyed Britany van Lange.
“It’s Olympic sized and now I can be proud to tell other swimmers Guyana has an Olympic pool,” she enthused.
“It will bring more swimmers obviously and it will also improve our competition level. I expect that I will be able to medal more at the bigger competitions. Right now mostly likely I’ll be going to ASATT [Amateur Swimming Association of Trinidad and Tobago] in December and that’s a 50 m pool, and I hope I could train in the pool for that.”
No longer within the age range to be considered a junior swimmer, 20-year-old Niall Roberts comes up against the toughest of competitors and could use all the leverage available.
“Now that the pool is open I can see myself getting a lot better, a lot faster because with the 25 m pool, we can only reach so far,” he said. “I’m 20 and the older you get your development kind of slows down and now that we have the 50 m I can get back on track.”
Hopefully we get the pool time, we get the pool but it’s all about the pool time as well, but if everything goes well every swimmer will be better, it’s a fact.” Roberts added.
However, the swimmers will have to wait for their chance to see just what training in a 50m pool can do for their performances at overseas meets, while the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) irons out an arrangement with the ministry over the use of the facility. GASA has already submitted a proposal and discussions are expected to be held.
