THE Surinamese team amassed a total of 1,507.2 points to be crowned champions of the 18th Goodwill Games Swimming Championships, which was hosted at the National Aquatic Centre, Liliendaal over the weekend.
They dethroned the defending champions Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) who finished in second with 1,443.5 points ahead of Barbados with 898.5 points and Guyana – 514 points.
Intense action unraveled over the three days, which saw 120 events being contested. In the Women’s category, Suriname was victorious with 695.2 points ahead of T&T (676.6), Barbados (519.5) and Guyana (275).
The Men’s category had the teams finishing in the same position as Suriname accumulated  812.2 points, T&T – 767 points, Barbados 379.4 points and Guyana – 239 points.
After two disappointing days of medal hunting, Guyana finished on a high note on Sunday with a victory in the Girls 15-17 200m Freestyle relay and silver in the Boys 13-14 200m Freestyle relay to up the medal tally.
Guyana’s Onika George and Suriname’s Valery Amstelveen tied for Gold in the Girls 13-14 50m Freestyle with a time of 29.22s ahead of Ashante Neus (Sur) who finished third with a time of 29.43s.
Britany Van Lange impressed for Guyana once again with a record time of 27.74s in the Girl 15-17 50m Freestyle.
Van Lange went on to shatter another record in the 15-17 100m Backstroke in a time of 1:22.16s ahead of her teammate Athena Gaskin (1:2509s) and T&T’s Colleen Parag. (1:25.56s).