Little Kyle Leera was the star on Saturday when the National Open Short Course Swimming Championships continued at the National Aquatic Centre in Balmain, Couva.
Leera, a double-gold winner at the Goodwill Swim Meet at the same venue earlier in August, claimed three gold medals at Saturday's third day of the event, coming in the boys' 10 and under 50-metre breaststroke, the 100m freestyle and the 100m butterfly.
He dominated the titles won on the day, while Christian Awah and Taylor Marchan were also in winner's row by each winning two titles. Nikoli Blackman, the junior swimming ace was also among the medals, as well as Amelia Rajack and Tyler Ho-A-Shu.
After qualifying from the 50m breaststroke final earlier, Leera's oozing confidence showed from start to finish, as he touched the wall at the finish well ahead of his closest rival in a time of 39.23 seconds. Jeremiah Mahabir later stormed home for the silver medal in 45.18, with Aidan Mayers taking the bronze (45.71).
It was much of the same in the 100m freestyle for Leera's second final of the day, where he cruised to the finish ahead of the same two swimmers, Mahabir and Mayers in that order, in 1:11.39, following splits at 15.71 and 34.06.
Mahabir, followed Leera from the start with splits at 17.07, 35.78 and 54.93, before touching the wall at 1:13.33 for his finish, while Mayers took the bronze in 1:13.69.
In the 100m butterfly, Leera secured the win in 1:20.45 with the other two places being gobbled up by the pair of Mayers and Micah Alexander in times of 1:25.81 and 1:30.74, respectively.
Leera's wins increased his gold medal tally to six after claiming three gold on Friday night, in the boys' 10 and under 100m breaststroke, the 50m backstroke and the 200m freestyle in respective times of 1:25.51, 36.01 and 2:36.56.
Marchan on the other hand, dashed to the finish in the girls' 100m butterfly in 1:19.42, with second Marena Martinez (1:21.21) and third Zalayhar Lewis (1:23.07) in close pursuit.
She was back at it later on in the day, this time sealing the win in the 100m freestyle by posting a time of 1:08.42. The duo of Zara Persico (1:09.42) and Martinez (1:11.02) took second and third, respectively.
Meanwhile, Awah took the gold medals in the 50m butterfly and 50m breaststroke after splashing to times of 23.98 and 29.63, respectively.
Blackman's winning performance came in the boys' 11 and over 200m freestyle event where he rushed to the wall first, ahead of the pair of Zachary Anthony (1:59.25) and Liam Carrington (2:00.99) in a time of 1:53.32).
