The trio of Mc Leod broth­ers, Olympian David, Joshua and Abra­ham along with USA-based Alexan­dria Don­ahue will spear-head this coun­try's medal hopes, when the 2015 edi­tion of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships splash­es off at the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Wildey, Christ Church, Bar­ba­dos from to­day un­til Sat­ur­day.

Two years ago when the event was held in San Jose, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Joshua Mc Leod and Flori­da-based Chris­t­ian Homer both won three in­di­vid­ual gold medals while Don­ahue took home two, in help­ing T&T to a tal­ly of 34 medals over­all (16 gold, sev­en sil­ver and 11 bronze) and the high­est place on the ta­ble of any Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­try, sev­enth and with 433 points for sixth.

Venezuela emerged as cham­pi­ons with 1, 067 points well clear of Cos­ta Ri­ca (711) and Guatemala (497), while Hon­duras was fourth with 473 and Aru­ba fifth (450).T&T was next ahead of Bar­ba­dos (362) and Ba­hamas (292).In terms of medals, the Venezuela won a whop­ping 94 (42 gold, 27 sil­ver and 25 bronze), while T&T fol­lowed by Ho­duras with 35 (11 gold, 12 sil­ver, 12 bronze), Aru­ba with 37 (ten gold, 16 sil­ver and 11 bronze) and Guatemala with 26 (ten gold, nine sil­ver and sev­en bronze).

Oth­er medal win­ners from two years back to bol­ster the T&T swim squad, which has Paul Newal­lo as head coach, are Abra­ham Mc Leod and Kael Yorke who had one gold­en swim each.

How­ev­er, this time around, Homer is not part of the T&T squad along with Kristien Julien (two gold) and Cherelle Thomp­son, an­oth­er in­di­vid­ual gold win­ner from 2013. But the T&T squad will ben­e­fit from the in­clu­sion of Don­ahue's younger sis­ter Gabriela who will com­pete in the 11 to 12 age-group This year's event will be void of swim­mers from Venezuela and Mex­i­co.

When swim­ming gets go­ing from 9 am to­day, Yorke and Gabriela will be first in ac­tion in the 100m back­stroke heats fol­lowed by Gra­ham Cha­toor in the 800m freestyle.Gabriela al­so swims in the 200m breast­stroke while her el­der sis­ter Alexan­dria goes in the 100m breast­stroke with Abra­ham Mc Leod.

Yorke will re­turn to the pool for the 50m freestyle heats with Jeron Thomp­son while the trio of Alexan­dria, Vris­nelit Fau­re and Thomp­son face the starter in their re­spec­tive age-group 200m in­di­vid­ual med­ley events ahead of the med­ley re­lays.The Open Wa­ter com­pe­ti­tion comes off from June 27 to 30 and the sev­en-mem­ber T&T squad for the 5K and events will de­part T&T on Fri­day along with coach Hazel Haynes at the helm.

But, they will be with­out top medal hope in Chris­t­ian Mars­den as he fo­cus­es on his prepa­ra­tions for next month's Pan Amer­i­can Games in Toron­to, Cana­da.In ad­di­tion to host Bar­ba­dos and T&T, the oth­er coun­tries list­ed to com­pete from to­day are Puer­to Ri­co, Bermu­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Pana­ma, Suri­name, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Hon­duras, US Vir­gin Is­lands, Cu­ra­cao, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, Grena­da and Aru­ba.

T&T CC­CAN swim team

Girls:

�2 11-12: Ja­da Cha­toor, Gabriela Don­ahue

�2 13-14: Vris­nelit Fau­re, Racine Ross

�2 15-17: Ami­ra Pil­grim, Ariel Cape

�218 & over: Alexan­dria "Al­lie" Don­ahue

Boys:

�211-12: Aqeel Joseph

�2 13-14: Kael Yorke, Gra­ham Cha­toor, Luke Gillette, Jeron Thomp­son

�2 15-17: Bradley Thomas, Justin Sam­lals­ingh

�2 18 & over: Strass­er Sankar, Chris­t­ian Awah, Joshua Mc Leod, Abra­ham Mc Leod, David Mc Leod

Tech­ni­cal Staff:

�2 Paul Newal­lo (coach), Bri­an Wick­ham (as­sis­tant coach), Shas­tri Sankar (man­ag­er), Ly­der George (chap­er­one).

Open Wa­ter team

�2 Girls 14-17: Sab­ri­na David, Bri­ana Pat­ter­son, Chis­ara San­tana

�2 Boys 14-17: Gabriel By­noe, Se­bas­t­ian Marc­hand

�2 Boys 18 & over: Aleem Mo­hammed, Keanu Otero

Tech­ni­cal staff:

�2 Hazel Haynes (coach), Bertram Black­man (chap­er­one)