Details on two exciting weekends of swimming action scheduled to commence this weekend were announced by the Tornadoes Swim Club during a press launch hosted on Wednesday.

The club’s first-ever title sponsor, Amazing Concrete Finishes Ltd, was also confirmed for the upcoming series with a contribution of $2.3 million towards the 26th edition of the annual meet which now boasts a new format.

The highly anticipated meet will now be split over two weekends — the first, dubbed the TSC “Spidey Challenge” in tribute to the late Michael Critchlow, former manager of Carifta swim team, is scheduled for May 12-13. The second — the TSC Annual Invitational Meet — will take place June 9-11 at the National Aquatics Centre in Kingston.

Athletes from 10 local clubs have been registered for the first meet with several local record breakers and overseas-based swimmers confirmed for the latter. Sanctioned by World Aquatics, both meets will serve as qualifiers for the annual Goodwill Games which will be hosted in Jamaica during the month of August. The invitational meet will serve as a qualifying event for both the 2023 World Championship and Pan-Am Games.

“We are thrilled to welcome on board the Amazing Concrete family as well as our new and returning sponsors whose contribution together set a new bar for club swimming sponsorship in Jamaica and the Tornadoes Club is happy to continue our trailblazing tradition in this regard as Jamaica’s largest and most successful swimming organisation,” Lee said.

She also expressed gratitude to the other sponsors for the meet, including FirstRock Ltd, Wisynco, Tyre Warehouse, Veins Centre of Jamaica, Main Event, iPrint Ltd, IronRock Ltd and Tewani Ltd. The club has also received overwhelming support from a number of other corporate entities to make the planned events possible.

Commenting on the decision to sponsor the Tornadoes, Yannick Sharpe, CEO and founder of Amazing Concrete Finishes Ltd, expressed congratulations to the Tornadoes for consistently maintaining a significantly high standard of swimming excellence.

“We are very proud to align our brand and give support to these incredible young athletes who are dominating locally and are making an impact across the region and internationally,” Sharpe said.

Explaining the new format, Lee highlighted that “the first meet provides an opportunity for swimmers of all levels to demonstrate their abilities across all distances”.

“The second meet will see our most competitive athletes challenge themselves against their counterparts having achieved the prescribed qualifying standard,” Lee noted. “This is important from a developmental perspective as it will allow us to quickly identify standouts in the next generation of swimmers while boosting the competitive field and motivation for our more experienced athletes.”