Kito Campbell’s love affair with water started at a tender age and so it is no surprise that the young sensation is now on course to becoming a big name in Jamaica’s aquatics.

“My father loved going to beaches and pools and he would always take me with him, especially to pools during the summer, and so I developed a love for being in and around water, even though I couldn’t really swim. Eventually I got tired of almost drowning, and so I did some swimming lessons,” Campbell said of his time growing up.

Those lessons later blossomed into training sessions and Campbell inevitably started competing at swim meets, where he gradually honed his craft while working his way through the various age groups.

However, Campbell’s true potential did not come to light until late 2017 when his persistence pushed him beyond his Y-Speedos Swim Club training sessions into additional sessions with Kaizen Swim Club’s Head Coach Rory Alvaranga on weekends.

That move resulted in him making his first appearance on a national team at the 2018 Carifta Swimming Championship on Jamaican soil.

Though he missed out on making the team to the 2019 staging, he was back in the fold for the 2020 edition, which was later cancelled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Since then, Campbell has committed fully to Alvaranga and Kaizen Swim Club and his breakthrough performances earlier this year were clear for all to see.

In fact, 2021 is the year that Jamaica and the region really took notice of his talents in and out of the pool.

After copping a pole vault gold medal for Calabar High at the Inter-secondary Schools Boys Association (ISSA) Boys’ and Girls’ Athletic Championships, Campbell had a dream debut at the Central American and Caribbean Confederation (CCCAN) Championships in Puerto Rico in June, where he soared to higher heights, this time in the pool, as he achieved national senior records in the 50-metre and 100-metre breaststroke.

“The best part about the pole vault was being in the air, but that only last a few seconds, and everything else about the event is so technical and complicated that I would get annoyed and disappointed during practice whenever felt I didn’t master something quickly enough,” Campbell told the Jamaica Observer.

“But when I swim, it’s quite the opposite, even when I have an off day, I always go home feeling calm. The last two seasons showed me that competing in both sports at the same time was too much for me to handle because I had little energy to do anything else once the competition season started. So when I decided it was time to choose, swimming was always my first love,” he added.

At CCCAN, Campbell topped the 50m breaststroke in 28.55 seconds, lowering Brad Hamilton’s previous record of 29.73 and claiming Jamaica’s first gold medal in the 15-17 age group event.

The 18-year-old again lowered the 15-17 and senior national record twice in the 100m breaststroke, as he posted 1:06.78 in the heats followed by 1:06.68 for silver in the final. Both times bettered Hamilton’s 14-year-old mark of 1:07.30.

Those performances, particularly that of the 50m breaststroke, ranked Campbell in the top 10 best Carifta region swimmers among the likes of Trinidad and Tobago’s Olympic medallist George Bovell III and Bahamian Olympians Dustin Tynes and Izaak Bastian.

Despite that accolade, and the fact that he returned to again lower the 100m breaststroke record to a flat 1:06.00, Campbell, who was also in top form at a meet in Dominican Republic, remains modest, admitting that he is still some ways off from becoming a household name.

“Honestly, I believe my journey is just beginning. I have a long way to go before I can be considered a big name, but I know with continued dedication and hard work, my time will come,” the soft-spoken personality said.

“Like most aspiring athletes, I want to win an Olympic gold medal one day; that is the goal. But, again, I just want to remain humble, work hard, and continue dreaming big and, by God’s grace, I will be blessed enough to fulfil those dreams for myself, my family and for Jamaica,” Campbell noted.

Campbell’s stubborn determination and desire to succeed will not allow him to be distracted from the task at hand, and so with proverbial blinders on, he was unfazed by his controversial non-selection to the just-concluded 15th FINA World Short Course Championship in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Instead, the Jamaican FINA scholarship awardee focused on the positives of what was a fulfilling year with hopes of accomplishing much more in the year ahead.

“This year has been good for me, I improved significantly, but I still believe that I did not get enough chances to race because, since the CCCAN, I have only been to two full swimming competitions. So that’s the only thing I’m unhappy about,” he told the Observer.

“Outside of that, I’m very satisfied with my performances. I think my biggest accomplishment this year would be my 50m breaststroke at CCCAN, but I’m most proud of my 50m butterfly performance even though the 50m breaststroke seemed to turn the most heads,” the final-year Calabar stalwart said.

“But I’m anxiously looking forward to the new year because I believe 2022 will be a big one for me. I’m putting in more hours into practice than I did before, and monitoring my progress daily and I also have the best coaches to help get me to where I want to be, so I have full confidence that I will continue to improve,” Campbell ended.

Meanwhile, Alvaranga described Campbell as a coach’s dream.

“Campbell is a very focused athlete, always working on his technique. He is just a coach’s dream athlete; one that you can take all the way to get him to his fullest potential. He continues to improve with every swim meet and he applies himself daily in training,” Alvaranga, the father of another rising star, Zaneta, shared.

“He is very easy to work with and he loves to challenge himself in training. The more he understands and masters the technique he would say, ‘Coach, how does it look,’ and we work from that because we focus heavily on technique at Kaizen,” the coach noted.