AFTER dropping to fifth last year, Corentyne (District 6) will be coming out gunning hard to place second at this year’s National Schools’ Cycling, Swimming and Track and Field Championships (Nationals) which begins tomorrow in Georgetown.

After finishing third in 2015, the Berbice district was not able to maintain or improve their standing; their teachers’ team took quite a beating, and their swimming team could not even put together a single point. This was despite championing the cycling competition and finishing sixth in the athletics competition.

Head of the District, Paula Perreira believes the team has the ability to even rival longtime leading Districts Upper Demerara/Kwakwani (District 10) and North Georgetown (District 11), but the lack of swimmers continue to hold them back.
“Swimming has always been our weakest area. You find even though we have a few swimmers, our swimmers lack the basic techniques and even training. And we find that in the swimming, we might not even score a point,” She conveyed, citing what happened to the team at last year’s Nationals.

“Last year we didn’t score a single point even though we had a few swimmers, so even though we did well in the teachers competition, in cycling and the track and field, we could not win the championships because we could not score any points in the swimming.”
Perreira hopes to see measures taken to mitigate the situation but knows that it will be a collective effort that will need a lot of continued support.

“What is needed is skilled persons to teach us the basic techniques and more pools to be available to us. Because our athletes they can swim but they don’t know the techniques when it comes to the pools. We did have GASA came up and they did a session with us about three years ago, but it’s something that needs to be done on a more regular basis,” she said.
With 8 swimmers on her team this year, Perreira still does not have much hope for Corentyne in the swimming, but notes that there has been an improvement in the teachers’ team, which is fueling her hopes of seeing improved standing at this year’s event.
“We do have a better team this year than we did last year, because last year we went with a short team teachers’ team, so this year we’re better. We are probably looking at finishing second; I won’t say first because our swimming being what it is, we can’t expect better than that.”