IT WAS a happy feeling for me last weekend to witness the opening ceremonies in Barbados of the 15th Goodwill Swim Meet, and to support the Guyanese team.

Though Guyana placed fourth overall (after Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Grenada), it was a good experience for us. The Aquatic Centre venue in Barbados has a 50- metre-long Olympic-size pool. Get-togethers such as this bode well for the country’s future in domestic, regional and international swim meets.

More importantly, such exposure, coupled with the coming on stream of our own Olympic pool soon may serve as an impetus. It will encourage an overall appreciation among Guyanese in general of the recreational and life-saving dimensions of the long established and healthy international sport.

Swimming goes back a long way. The Wikipedia (Internet) site on swimming refers to an Egyptian clay seal dated 4000 to 9000 BC depicting four people swimming, using what we now know as the front crawl. Even before nation-states, peoples everywhere swam in the water as they went about their everyday life (harvesting seafood, for example).

The front crawl is one of four strokes recognised for competitive meets by the World Swimming Association. The others are the backstroke, breast stroke and butterfly. In the beginning, the crawl was the preferred competitive stroke, because it is the fastest. It involves the swimmer lying in the water, stomach down, with the arms going like a windmill, and feet kicking. This pulls and pushes the body forward. The crawl was fine-tuned after one of the developers of a variant, using a type of scissors kick, a Britisher named Trudgen, saw Amerindian swimmers in South America in 1870s using a more efficient, better-coordinated kick. The strokes were gradually refined and accepted at the Olympics by 1934, and certainly by 1952 in the case of the butterfly.

There was always swimming for fun, and even some form of organised competition in Guyana, using the rivers or creeks (hopefully with the piranhas and anacondas sleeping or far away, munching away or swallowing on something else). In colonial British Guiana, maybe this organised dimension became more formalised with one or two clubs. The Guyana Swimming Association undoubtedly has done some research on this, and the reception area of the new Olympic Pool should have some mention of any pioneers.

Plans are undoubtedly on the board that the facility will also be used to introduce and develop other water-related sports such as water polo, synchronised swimming and spring board diving . These are Olympic sports. Certain times (maybe Friday nights and all day Saturdays and Sundays) should be set aside for recreational swimming (‘just for fun’) by Guyanese families and individuals and tourists if they want. There will have to be modest entrance fees for maintenance, salaries and the like. Water safety and advanced life guard training — so many of Guyanese are needlessly drowning! — could also be squeezed in during the week, including as part of the school sports curriculum.

The benefits from swimming to individuals and the society as a whole are many. Unlike some other sports, recreational swimming can be enjoyed up to when you die. In fact, there is medical opinion which says that it is one of the most beneficial of activities to keep the body fit and healthy. Since there is no impact activity, such as while jogging, joints don’t come under pressure. Almost every muscle gets used while swimming. It also hardly has any competitors in the burning of calories.

I try to swim at least a couple hours, even spear fishing, every week in the sea around Barbados. I have many pleasant memories of working as a Canadian Red Cross and Royal Life Saving Society accredited Swimming Instructor with the Municipality of Etobicoke in Toronto during the 1960s. While at the opening ceremony over the weekend, I was glad to catch up once again with Barbadian, David Farmer, the first manager of the Aquatic Centre, so excellently conceived and built in the 1990s by people like Maurice Foster and Ian Edgehill, all of whom I was privileged to know over the years.

The managerial and coaching part of ‘Team Guyana’ at last weekend’s meet in Barbados must be commended for their good work. Stephanie Fraser and her son, Nicholas, sometimes do not get the recognition they deserve. The same can be said for the sponsors in the private sector, who assist and defray some of the costs to get teams like this overseas. The Ministry of Sports undoubtedly supports the Association’s worthwhile efforts, and will do all it can with the resources available to assist them, especially with the Olympic Pool project.

And, of course, the young swimmers. All the very best to them! One day, Guyana will have an Olympic medal in swimming.

The future looks bright for this sport in Guyana. It should serve as a spinoff for other water- related activities. Let us all, including retirees, use this healthy activity and other sports to make us a better all-round people, so we can continue to make Guyana an even better place.
(Norman Faria is Guyana’s Honorary Consul in Barbados. <nfaria@caribsurf.com>)