Fol­low­ing on the large con­tin­gent of club and uni­ver­si­ty teams that uti­lized the swim­ming and div­ing fa­cil­i­ties at the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre (NAC) in De­cem­ber and ear­li­er this month, the Cana­di­an na­tion­al team al­so used the Cou­va cen­tre as its base for the past week.

The ju­nior na­tion­al swim team of 16 ath­letes and six coach­es ar­rived on Feb­ru­ary 4 to con­duct an in­ten­sive train­ing ses­sions.

Ac­cord­ing to team coach Don Bur­ton, the group is be­ing primed to rep­re­sent their coun­try at the 2024 Olympic Games, a hint of the long-term prepa­ra­tion by the Cana­di­ans when de­vel­op­ing a na­tion­al pro­gramme. In­clud­ed in the con­tin­gent is Mark Tews­bury, a 1992 Olympic gold medal­list in the 100m Back­stroke, who is work­ing with the team as a con­sul­tant.

The team de­part­ed Pi­ar­co yes­ter­day, just be­fore the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions get in­to full swing and ac­cord­ing to re­ports, they have had an en­joy­able stay. They are ex­pect­ed to make re­turn trip in the fu­ture.

The Aquat­ic Cen­tre was a hub of ac­tiv­i­ty in the win­ter months, ow­ing to the ef­forts of the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T to po­si­tion the fa­cil­i­ty as an ide­al des­ti­na­tion for win­ter train­ing.