T&T’s Spe­cial Olympics swim­mer, Trent Bethel, cap­tured the SOTT’s first medal at the Spe­cial Olympics In­ter­na­tion­al 2023 World Sum­mer Games in Berlin, Ger­many this morn­ing. Bethel claimed Gold in the 1500m Open Wa­ter Swim com­pe­ti­tion.

He was able to over­come swim­ming in 22 de­grees wa­ters to cap­ture first place in 20:25.7 al­most two (2) min­utes ahead of Ar­man­do Renta Ramos of SO Puer­to Ri­co 22:28.7 and Rashed Lawrence of SO Cay­man Is­lands 24:10.9.

Fer­di­nand Bib­by, Na­tion­al Di­rec­tor said that Bethel has been prepar­ing for this and has worked hard over the last two years with his coach William Carr and the rest of the Trin­i­ty Mas­ters Swim Club.

Bethel com­plet­ed the In­au­gur­al 7K Open Wa­ter Swim from Fore­shore to 5 Is­lands in March 2022 and eas­i­ly won the Spe­cial Olympics Cat­e­go­ry in the 2300m Open Wa­ter Swim from Cale­do­nia Is­land to Care­nage in April of the same year.

He be­came the first Spe­cial Olympics ath­lete to qual­i­fy for a Na­tion­al Swim Team when he com­pet­ed in ASATT’s 10K Qual­i­fy­ing Open Wa­ter Swim in May 2022 and qual­i­fied for se­lec­tion as a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Swim Team to the CC­CAN Open Wa­ter Cham­pi­onships in Bar­ba­dos in 2022 where he per­formed cred­itably.

He al­so com­pet­ed in the 2022 and 2023 Sub­way Mara­cas Open Wa­ter Swim. Bethel will now en­ter the pool to com­pete in the 800m Freestyle swim.