CARIFTA Swimming: Raekwon Noel wins gold for Guyana

Raekwon Noel produced a phenomenal effort to win gold and Guyana’s first medal at the ongoing CARIFTA Swimming Championships in Curacao.

Noel’s time of 16:17.92 seconds was a new Personal Best and just off the Games record of 16:17.72 seconds in the Boys 15-17 1500m Freestyle.

Martinique’s Kimani Bellanger (16:24.48s) and Trinidadian Nikoli Blackman (16:46.46s) were also on the podium.

Due to a bad start, Noel got fifth in the 100m Butterfly with a time of 56.88 seconds, which was slower than his 56.66 seconds in the preliminaries.

Meanwhile, Olympian Aleka Persaud, backed by Guyana Shore Base Inc. for this event, shattered her own national record in the preliminaries of the 100m Butterfly.

During the prelims, Persaud clocked 1:06.93 seconds to finish fifth overall and lower the national record from 1:07.32 seconds, however, in the final, her last 25m was off-pace and she clocked 1:10.87 seconds to finish seventh.

Zara Crane clocked 3:04.06 seconds to finish 1oth in the preliminaries of the Girls 15-17 200m Breaststroke.

In the Girls’ 13-14 Backstroke, Shareefah Lewis clocked 33.22 seconds to finish 12th in the prelims while Jeremy Sookram (32.56s) got 19th in the Boys’ category.

Ariel Rodrigues (33.48s) did not progress in the Girls’ 15-17 50m Backstroke, likewise, Vladimir Woodroffe (29.68s).

Maiya Francois-Ifill and Marius Ramkhalawan (Open Water) are the other swimmers present along with coaches Jaime Skeete and Christol Thom.