Lani and Danielle Succeed in Sarasota Florida Meet

Two Stingrays Barbados swimmers ventured north to Sarasota, Florida to participate in the 2007 Sarasota YMCA Tom Herrington Memorial “Turkey” Swim Meet (www.sysharks.org). Their attendance was the first by a Barbados swim team. Along with the Tornadoes Swim team from Jamaica there were about 450 swimmers entered for meet held during the November 16 – 18 weekend.

The weather was cooler than Barbadian swimmers are used to but the pool was heated and after acquiring the necessary clothing Lani Cabrera and Danielle Clarke set off to take care of business. The first night Lani captured a bronze medal in the 1650 short course yards freestyle in a time of 17:45.26( 17:42.07 SC meters). The next day Danielle earned a bronze medal in the 100 free with a time of 57.67(1:04.36 SC meters) while Lani took the silver in the 500 free with 5:12.57(4:33.46 SC meters).On the final day both medaled again when Danielle took the silver in the 50 free in 26.01(29.03 SC meters) and Lani fought for the silver in 10:35.86(9:16.31 SC meters), a time that challenges the Barbados women’s record.

Barbadian swimmers have been urged by Leah Martindale during her recent workshop to search for competitive meets in Florida to gauge and showcase their talent so that coaches will be better able to monitor their progress for future scholarship consideration at universities in the United States. The Stingrays club and others will be attending similar meets in the future to hone their skills and experience world class venues in order to take Barbados swimming to the next level.