Paul Newal­lo, one of five as­sis­tant coach­es to head coach Anil Roberts, says he is look­ing for­ward to some out­stand­ing swim­ming per­for­mances from the lo­cal swim­mers when the 38th Carif­ta Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships host­ed by the Aquat­ics Sports As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (ASATT) splash­es off at the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, from Sat­ur­day to Tues­day (April 19-22).

Ahead of the lo­cal swim­mers div­ing in­to ac­tion against their re­gion­al ri­vals, Newal­lo, a two-time Olympian and for­mer na­tion­al swim­ming coach said, “With just three days left be­fore com­pe­ti­tion, the mem­bers of the swim­ming team have been prepar­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly, start­ing on Mon­day last be­tween 9 am and 11 am to co­in­cide with the ex­act time they will be swim­ming heats and try­ing to make it in­to fi­nals.

“The mem­bers of the team every day have been prac­tic­ing the re­lays takeovers as well as their starts and fin­ish­es, and when you prac­tice these things, it gives you an ad­van­tage, and over­all, the coach­ing team is very hap­py to see what has been go­ing on.”

With re­gards to the ses­sions, Newal­lo ex­plained, “The swim­mers have been di­vid­ed among the six coach­es, in­clu­sive of my­self, Hazel Haynes, Deronn Sam­lals­ingh, Nicholas Wash­ing­ton, Wen­dell Lyons and head coach Anil Roberts, in­to spe­cial groups that have tar­get­ed their ex­act events they will be con­test­ing. So, we are look­ing for­ward to out­stand­ing per­for­mances start­ing on Sat­ur­day.”

Newal­lo not­ed that World Aquat­ics pres­i­dent Cap­tain Hu­sain Al Musal­lam will be here in T&T for the du­ra­tion of the Carif­ta Games as well as World Ath­let­ics pres­i­dent Se­bastien Coe and it be an added fil­lip for the lo­cal swim­mers to get ready to show what they are ca­pa­ble of.

The T&T team will be rep­re­sent­ed by a full con­tin­gent of 36 swim­mers and a 10-mem­ber open wa­ter squad, which is set to com­pete in the Carif­ta Open Wa­ter Com­pe­ti­tion at the Five Is­lands Amuse­ment Park in Ch­aguara­mas on April 23.

T&T last claimed the Carif­ta ti­tle in 2010 and there is re­newed hope that the rein­tro­duc­tion of the na­tion­al train­ing squad, along with new qual­i­fi­ca­tion cri­te­ria, will pro­vide the nec­es­sary boost for the team to reach the top of the Carif­ta stand­ings.

Lead­ing the quest for T&T to se­cure its first over­all ti­tle since 2010 is the for­eign-based quar­tet of Zuri Fer­gu­son, Liam Car­ring­ton, Cather­ine Di­ef­fen­thaller and Tay­lor Marchan while the Open Wa­ter con­tin­gent in­cludes Mare­na Mar­tinez, Zara Per­si­co, Za­lay­har Lewis, and Evan Gillard Bruce.

<World Aquat­ics boss Al Musal­lam ar­rives to­day>

World Aquat­ics pres­i­dent Cap­tain Hu­sain Al Musal­lam will ar­rive in T&T as part of a high-lev­el re­gion­al tour that in­cludes at­ten­dance at the pres­ti­gious Carif­ta Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships, the biggest age-group swim­ming com­pe­ti­tion in the Caribbean.

The vis­it to T&T is part of a grow­ing em­pha­sis by World Aquat­ics on ex­pand­ing the sport’s glob­al foot­print and im­prov­ing in­clu­sion and ac­cess in tra­di­tion­al­ly un­der­served re­gions and is part of a broad­er ini­tia­tive by World Aquat­ics (for­mer­ly FI­NA) to deep­en en­gage­ment with Na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions, Olympic Com­mit­tees, and re­gion­al gov­ern­ments across Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

In ad­di­tion to T&T, the del­e­ga­tion will vis­it the Cay­man Is­lands, Mex­i­co, Pana­ma, and Aru­ba.

Join­ing Cap­tain Al Musal­lam on the tour will be World Aquat­ics Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Brent Now­ic­ki, Trea­sur­er Dale Neuburg­er, PanAm Aquat­ics Pres­i­dent Mau­reen Croes, and swim coach ad­vi­sor James Gib­son.

Al­so ac­com­pa­ny­ing the del­e­ga­tion is T&T’s three-time World Short Course Cham­pi­onship medal win­ner Dy­lan Carter, a re­gion­al icon and elite swim­mer whose in­volve­ment is ex­pect­ed to in­spire young ath­letes and in­crease the vis­i­bil­i­ty of the tour’s fo­cus on op­por­tu­ni­ty and in­clu­sion.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the pres­ence of Pres­i­dent Al Musal­lam at the Carif­ta Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships is a “key high­light of the tour” and un­der­scores World Aquat­ics’ com­mit­ment to the de­vel­op­ment of youth ath­letes in the re­gion.

“The pres­ence of Pres­i­dent Al Musal­lam at this event re­flects AQUA’s com­mit­ment to rec­og­niz­ing and sup­port­ing youth tal­ent at the high­est lev­els of re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion,” the re­lease stat­ed.

T&T swim team

11-12 Girls: Ra’el Ana­tol Mor­gan, Shazi­ah Ja­gas­sar, Za­lay­har Lewis, Za­hara An­tho­ny

11-12 Boys: Dim­itri Phillip, Eli­hu Brown, Julius En­nals, Khris­t­ian Allen, Tay­lan Di­az

13-14 Girls: Asia-Marie Pouchet, Bre­an­na Bel­mar, Mare­na Mar­tinez, Nik­ki Har­ryper­sad, Rae­gan Bel­mar, Tay­lor Marchan, Zara Per­si­co

13-14 Boys: Aaron Siewlal, Ethan McMil­lan Cole, Jadon Ramdeen, Qadir Lewis, Shain Grif­fith, Zion Ap­ple­whaite

15-17 Girls: Aimee Le Blanc, Anya Davis, Cather­ine Di­ef­fen­thaller, Keryn Burke, Toni Rae Yates, Zuri Fer­gu­son

15-17 Boys: An­pherne Bernard, Dar­ren Bel­fon, Evan Gillard Bruce, Isa­iah Alexan­der, Jaden Mills, Liam Car­ring­ton, Liam Roberts, Zachary An­tho­ny

Open Wa­ter

14-15 Girls: Mare­na Mar­tinez

14-15 Boys: Aaron Siewlal Kyle Ab­hay Boodram, Zion Ap­ple­whaite

16-18 Girls: Aimee Le Blanc, Ava Josephine Charles, Keryn Burke

16-18 Boys: Isa­iah Alexan­der, Jan­nai Ap­ple­whaite, Zachary An­tho­ny

Of­fi­cials

Man­ag­er: Alana Bour­geois-Dood­nath

Swim­ming

Head coach: Anil Roberts

As­sis­tant Coach­es: Paul Newal­lo, Hazel Haynes, Deronn Sam­lals­ingh, Nicholas Wash­ing­ton, Wen­dell Lyons

Open Wa­ter

Head coach: Mau­rice Faria (head coach)

Chap­er­ones: Kel­li Alexan­der, Chris­ma Alex­is-James