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Jessica Stephenson cops 2nd Carifta Gold as competition ends

Apr 08, 2010 Sports

Finishes with 2 gold & 1 silver; all personal best times

Guyana’s Jessica Stephenson finished the four-day Carifta Swimming Championship in Kingston, Jamaica on Tuesday night in grand style when she captured her second gold – this time in the 100m breaststroke.
Tuesday night’s swim in the 100m breast saw Stephenson swimming an extremely smart race to win in a Personal Best (PB) of 1:16.32, bettering her former PB by over 3.6 seconds; she hit the wall a full second ahead of the silver medalist Deandre Small of Barbados and two seconds ahead of Evita Leiter from Suriname.
Although, swimming in the 13-14 age group, Stephenson’s final time was a full two seconds ahead of Trinidad & Tobago’s winner of the 15-17 age group Rejan Chin. Her achievement is even greater given that at last year’s Carifta she had just come out of total immobilisation of her shoulder following major surgery and was unsure if she could swim again, let alone medal.
Her determination to get back in the water, intense physiotherapy and many hours in the pool, together with lots of dry land training, ensured that she not only returned to her sport but returned at the top – with 2 gold and a bronze – in what is regarded as the region’s highest age-group swimming competition.
Stephenson’s teammate Ronaldo Rodrigues, who also had a year off the sport, swam well in the preliminaries again for the 100m breaststroke in the morning, clocking a 1:18.77 which put him in 10th position – just outside of the finals times.
Coach Chris McAdam praised Rodrigues for his effort throughout the Championship and hopes that with more pool time and increased dry land training for both Rodrigues and his team mates, next year we will see more of the Golden Arrowhead on the podium.
He noted that Stephenson, who trains in Trinidad, often swims at least five (5) more hours a week than Rodrigues and often double the distance, which of course increases her competitive ability in a sport which requires, on average, twelve (12+) hours a week in the water together with over seven (7) hours of dry land or aerobic training.
Team Manager, Davina Stephenson thanked the swimmers for the way in which they conducted themselves throughout the Meet – both made lots of new friends and, despite being the smallest team, (with Antigua which also fielded two swimmers) both managed to make their presence felt in and out of the pool and without a doubt proudly represented their sponsors GT&T Cellink, Cara Hotels, DDL and Scotiabank.
She added her thanks to the Trinidad Team for assistance with the flight to Jamaica and also to Mr. Raymond Eytle and Dr. Sally Eytle for their support during the Meet. In the final medal count for swimming Guyana finished an admirable 10th ahead of St. Lucia, Grenada, the Netherlands Antilles, Bermuda, the US Virgin Islands and Antigua & Barbuda.
General Secretary of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) Dr. Karen Pilgrim said the association looks forward to fielding more swimmers in the many upcoming Meets due for this year.

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