Kito Campbell knows that the good and sometimes tough aspect about swimming is that all the results are in a swimmer’s hands.

There is a great feeling of accomplishment and self-sufficiency when good times and performances are produced, but then there are times when you are faced with disappointments, to include but not limited to a disqualification or missed times.

Still, Campbell is aware that the responsibility of how to deal with disappointments rests on his shoulders, and for that reason he is using the below-par performances from the World Championships and the recently concluded Caribbean Games as motivation going forward.

At the World Championships in Budapest, Campbell clocked 29.06 seconds for 39th overall in the 50-metre breaststroke, followed by a 1:05.27 clocking, which placed him 52nd overall in the 100m breaststroke.

Though he saw some improvements in his times at the Caribbean Games in Guadeloupe where he clocked 28.50s and 1:04.66 to place fourth in both 50m and 109m breaststroke finals, it wasn’t good enough for Campbell, who holds himself to high standards.

“Now I just want to keep working to improve and obviously go faster. Going to the World Championships, I knew it was going to be tough, but I set my standards high so not progressing from the prelims wasn’t good enough for me and the not medalling at the Caribbean Games was another below-par performance,” Campbell told the Jamaica Observer from his base in Florida.

“I’m not one to make excuses, the performances are what they were and I have accepted them and have already moved on. For me, they are now motivation to ensure that I never perform below expectations and so the aim now is to put in the necessary work to ensure that it doesn’t happen again,” he added.

If Campbell’s tone is anything to go by, many would not know that the World Championships outing was his senior debut at that level, where he became the first man from Jamaica to swim the 100m breaststroke on that stage.

“World Championships was overwhelming because I’ve never experienced an event where there was so many people in one place that were actually faster than I am, so that was new. It was also my first time being in an arena that big, so when I walked in I felt kind of small. So it was a fun experience and the races were good,” said Campbell.

With the Caribbean Games coming mere days after the World Championships, Campbell, 19, admitted that he was still reeling from the fact that times on the big stage didn’t better his national records of 28.36s and 1:04.62 seconds, even as he made his way to Guadeloupe.

“I wasn’t motivated for it [Caribbean Games], I honestly never felt like competing until I got there and saw the psych sheets, and that’s when I started getting pumped and ready to race,” the Calabar sixth former shared.

On day one he clocked 1:04.24 in the 100m breaststroke prelims to advance to the finals where he added time in posting the 1:04.66 for fourth.

However, it was the reverse on the second day as he posted 29.05s in the 40m breaststroke prelims, but improved it in the finals, clocking 28.50s for another fourth-place finish.

While it was something from which to take heart, Campbell, now being conditioned at Azura Aquatics in Florida, thought very little of it as he had been in better form than the performances displayed in the long course season.

“I actually did better at Caribbean Games time-wise than I did at World Championships and that was okay, but I thought it should have been the other way around,” he said.

— Sherdon Cowan