‘Stadium Pool will be ready for Carifta’
THE Amateur Swimming Association of Jamaica (ASAJ) is keeping its fingers crossed that the Stadium Pool will be completely ready today for Saturday’s start of the four-day Carifta Swimming Championships.
The pool has been closed for the better part of a year while repairs were being done to a leakage in the system.
Water was still being piped into the 50m and 25m diving pools late last week to have them ready to host the 16 teams which will compete in competitive swimming, synchronised swimming and water polo this weekend.
“We have to make it happen,” ASAJ president John Eyre told the Observer.
“There are still some issues that we have to resolve, but I believe that we’ve come to grips with the major issues; the pool is not where we want it yet, but we’ll have to make it happen over the next day or two.”
The water in the 50m pool was still slightly green yesterday evening, but Eyre said once it balanced out everything would be a go.
“Now that we’ve got the diving pool in the system, everything will balance out,” he said.
“We know what the issues are and we believe that come tomorrow (this) morning we’ll have a pool which is pretty much usable by the time the teams start arriving, and it will be in pristine condition by the time competition starts on Saturday,” he promised.
“The main thing is that it’s clear and we’re in it now,” said head coach Jacky Walter.
Despite the issues with the pool, she added that it is better for the swimmers to compete at home where they have the advantage in a number of areas.
“It hasn’t been a good year and I’m sure that will ultimately affect our performance, but based on the fact that we’re home I think we’re better off than if we had to travel,” she said.
“One of the advantages is that the swimmers can stay at home. They don’t have to share a bed the way they do when they travel. They can also get the ideal type of nutrition that they’re accustomed to,” she added.
Walter intimated that home crowd advantage was also priceless.
“When you have the home crowd behind you, that is tremendous pressure,” she said.
The teams who were down to participate are Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Jamaica, Martinique, Netherlands Antilles, St Lucia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and US Virgin Islands.
