ALEKA Persaud finished with a gold medal in the 100M butterfly event at the 2019 CARIFTA Aquatic Championships, which started yesterday at the Barbados Aquatic Centre in Wildey.
Team Guyana, which includes six swimmers, had four top five finishes on Day One with the 12-year-old leading the charge.
Persaud stormed to an almost two seconds win in the event (for 11-12 year-old swimmers) last night. She finished in a time of 1:08.52, over a second faster than her preliminary time of 1:09.61s and quite faster than Giani Francis from Jamaica, who settled for a silver after clocking 1:10.17. Harper Barrowman from the Cayman Islands placed third in a time of 1:10.53.

Due to her dominance in the 100M butterfly, the preteen also qualified for the Caribbean and Central American Championships, which is scheduled for later this year.
Prior to that clash, Patrice Mahaica, the other Guyanese female at the championships, finished fourth in the 50M backstroke after clocking a time of 35.67s, while Persaud finished fifth in a time of 35.78s.

Both swimmers had registered better times in the preliminaries. Persaud had clocked 34.53s for a fifth place position, while Mahaica was tied for sixth on 34.97s.
Raekwon Noel was the other swimmer to register a top five performance.
The 13-year-old swam 18:18.88 to finish fifth in the Boys 13-14 age division in the 1500M freestyle event. Noel was in third for a few hours, before two swimmers registered better time in the final round yesterday afternoon.

Leon Seaton, who registered a PB in the 50M back with a time of 30.54s, just missed qualifying for the final after placing ninth. In the 13-14 100M butterfly Seaton finished 13th after clocking a time of 1:04.86.
Paul Mahaica also just missed the final, after finishing ninth in the 11-12 100M butterfly preliminaries in a time of 1:11.19s.
All the swimmers swam yesterday morning, except Nathan Jackson.