The National Aquatic Centre will roar back to life with competitive action after more than a year of inactivity this weekend with the first in a series of time trials to be staged by the Aquatic Sports Association of Jamaica (ASAJ) on Saturday and Sunday.

The 13-year-old and over swimmers will go on Saturday from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm, while on Sunday the 11- to 12-year-old swimmers will take to the pool from 8:30 am to 11:30 am.

ASAJ President Martin Lyn says that both individuals and clubs will be contesting the trials this weekend.

“As you know the ASAJ has been granted approval to do swimming time trials, which basically means that the swimmers will be competing against each other in a time trials setting. Clubs will also be competing against clubs so, essentially, we are going to try and see if we can do the first set of time trials this weekend,” he said.

After months of back and forth with the authorities to get approval for the resumption of the sport, swimming finally got the go-ahead last week, and now with even more protocols added, the ASAJ are ready to get things going.

“We have got approval for a series of time trials, so we will see how the first one goes, but it’s been a lot of different dots to connect to get us towards the 8th and 9th of May. We are anticipating that we will be covering all the bases including extra protocols that the powers that be have put in place for us.

“We are optimistic, we are certainly looking forward to our swimmers back in the water competing against each other,” noted Lyn.

The ASAJ boss says that the overall response from the swimmers has been what his association expected, although a few swimmers have taken a wait-and-see approach.

“The response has been excellent. We had set out to have a certain number of athletes and we will have that amount. Some athletes are doing the wait and see and we appreciate that, because obviously, you must protect your own safety, so we do understand when people don’t want to participate,” noted Lyn.

He noted, however, that swimmers are anxious to get back to competitive action and suggested that this weekend’s event will help to create a template for the way forward for the near future.

“It’s obviously totally voluntary, but generally the athletes are enthusiastic, they are very anxious to get back into the pool in terms of being competitive, swimming against each other, and there is definitely a little bit of exuberance coming forward. So we will just see this weekend what the rest of the series will look like.”

The series is also expected to help with team selection for international competitions later this year.

— Dawyne Richards