NATIONAL swimmers Accalia Khan, Soroya Simmons, Athena Gaskin, and Hannibal Gaskin all made it to the medal podium after winning Guyana’s first four medals on Friday, when the first day of competition in the Goodwill Swimming Championships got under way in Barbados.

And as the competition continued yesterday, Khan and Simmons, earlier in the day, continued to upgrade Guyana’s medal collection when they both won another bronze in their 100m freestyle and 50m backstroke events, respectively.

On Friday, Simmons, Khan and Hannibal all won bronze in the 200m freestyle of their respective age categories, while Athena swam 38.93s in the girls’ 15 – 17 50m breaststroke late Friday night to win the Guyana’s final medal of the day.

Athena finished behind Trinidad’s Colleen Parag who won the silver medal after swimming 37.40 seconds. First place for the race went to Kimberley Willoughby, who championed the event in a record breaking 36.25 seconds. Willoughby’s swim overtook the one year old 37 seconds previous record set by Guyana’s Britany van Lange.

That wasn’t the first of van Lange’s records that Willoughby overcame, the Barbadian also tore down van Lange’s 2:14.54s record earlier in the 200m freestyle. Willoughby swam to a 2:09.84s win of the event, in which Simmons finished third. Simmons swam 2:18.49 to earn her medal, and Sujni Singh swam 2:15.11s to earn a silver medal for Suriname.

It was Khan who started off the Guyana’s medal win, on Friday, when her 2:20.61 swim in the girls’ 13 – 14 200m freestyle was good enough for a third place finish. Khan scraped over 13 seconds off her seed time, after having entered the race seeded sixth with a time of 2:33.33s, and finished just three seconds behind first place winner Kai Proverbs.

Proverbs, swimming for the Barbados team, won the race in 2:17.13s, while it was another silver for Trinidad after Mikka Cabral swam the race in 2:19.25s.

Khan once again got the ball rolling for Guyana yesterday, when she won the team’s first medal of the day.
Garnering Guyana’s second medal on Friday was Hannibal in the boys’ 15 – 17 category. Starting out seeded fourth with an entry time of 2:11.09s, Gaskin fought to take off 3 seconds from his seed time and end the race in 2:06.62s.
The gold medal for this race went to Suriname, compliments of a 2:02.72s swim by Quincy Gemerts. Trinidad once again held on for second place which went to Vikash Ramtahal off a 2:05.50s finish.