Aquatics boss Lyn clings to hope Gov’t will give blessing for preparation meet
With last month’s planned race session being shot down by the Ministry of health and Wellness (MOHW), Aquatic Sports Association of Jamaica (ASAJ) President Martin Lyn is hopeful that they will get the green light to host another in the coming weeks to aid swimmers in hitting qualifying marks for the Carifta Swimming Championships.
Lyn’s wave of optimism followed the recent publication of the summons for this year’s staging of the championships by host nation Barbados, which was greeted with a number of questions, chief among them being whether Jamaica would field a team and how the ASAJ would go about the selection process for said team.
The championships — which often comprises artistic swimming, traditional swimming, open water swimming and water polo — was cancelled last year for the first time since it started in 1985, to safeguard the health and well-being of athletes, officials and supporters at the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
As such, all eyes will be peeled to see how things transpire with the infectious virus leading up to the March 28 to April 7 championships in the eastern Caribbean island, which has to date recorded 968 cases and seven deaths.
“I learnt recently that Barbados has taken a little turn for the worst in terms of the COVID virus, but we are hoping that by the end of March, we will see a turn around to ensure that Carifta goes ahead,” Lyn shared.
“Our athletes have been training, fortunately for us we were able to open our Aquatic Centre and certainly those that know they have an opportunity to represent Jamaica would definitely put more effort in training than others.
“So all being well, we should be able to send a team to Carifta. I won’t guarantee that it will be the full quota because, obviously, some parents have the right to decide whether or not to send their child, but we will see where we go on terms of that, but we do intend to send a team to Carifta,” he told the Jamaica Observer.
Where qualifying times are concerned, Lyn pointed out that the ASAJ could use previous times, which would ensure that a number of the nation’s top age group swimmers make the trip.
However, if that route is taken, then swimmers who may not have been as fast as a Nathaniel Thomas or Zaneta Alvaranga in the past, but are now peaking enough to hit or surpass qualifying marks, may be denied an opportunity to do so.
“We have different options for selection. The first is that all our swimmers have times, so having times is not really an issue for us because our association has always kept times for our athletes and club keep times for their athletes as well.
“So we have the times and whether or not we use those times are not is an option but we will try to find a way to get new times because the athletes are in fact swimming. So the fact of the matter is that we can always get a time between now and April and regardless of what method we decide to use, we will be able to send a team to Carifta,” Lyn noted.
Since the failure to gain the necessary approval to host the race session, Lyn said he has submitted additional protocols to the relevant ministries and is now awaiting word on whether or not they will be able to host the session which is to mimic competition conditions with automatic timing equipment and officials to help the swimmers test their competition readiness and secure some times for national selection.
“We are always in dialogue with the various ministries, and we have in fact submitted more protocols and more reasons why we should be hosting some sort of race sessions. So we are going to wait now and see if we can get a positive response from the various ministries. It is a work in progress and hopefully I can get something positive within a week or two,” he explained.
That aside, Lyn believes there is hope beyond Carifta, with Central American and Caribbean Amateur Swimming Confederation (CCCAN) and Junior Panam also on the horizon to complement the Olympic Games where Alia Atkinson, and possibly Yona Knight-wisdom, will fly the country’s flag in aquatics.
“Panama has agreed to host CCCAN and if that is so then we will be able to send a team to CCCAN as well, and besides the big Olympics, we would have the inauguration meet of Junior Panam which is something we are now looking forward to,” Lyn stated.
“In fact I can now tell you that FINA [International Swimming Federation] has given us financial support to send a team to that [Junior Panam] meet, and that is a big thing for us in terms of FINA support.
“The amount we got from FINA in total is US$25,000 which is what we are entitled to get, but we took a decision to give water polo some funding as well and artistic swimming to help develop their athletes and their infrastructure as well,” Lyn addded.