This weekend’s Tornadoes Swim Club Invitational meet is being hailed as an important tool in the development of the sport in Jamaica as some of the island’s best swimmers get set to match their strokes with overseas competitors from four countries.

The 25th instalment of the event, which gets underway tomorrow and runs through to Sunday at the National Aquatics Centre, will feature swimmers from Egypt, the Cayman Islands, Morocco, and Mexico in what noted club Coach Wendy Lee, who is also a part of the national programme, is expecting to help guarantee world-class performances over the three days of competition.

Lee is also expecting the meet, which is accredited by FINA as a World Championships qualifier, to also help in athletes’ preparation for important upcoming international assignments such as the Commonwealth Games and the Pan American Age Group Swimming Championship.

“It’s a record-breaking meet because our reputation as a club and a country in swimming has allowed FINA to endorse our meet as a World Championships qualifier and as a result we have four overseas countries coming here, we have never had that,” Lee said at yesterday’s launch event at the competition venue.

“We have the national junior team from the Cayman Islands, we have swimmers trying to represent Morocco, we have the 24th-ranked athlete in the 50m freestyle in the world representing Egypt and he is coming here to qualify and we have four swimmers from Mexico; so for us to have so many international representation at our meet, that is also record-breaking,” said Lee.

“We are sponsored by world-class organisations and they are willing to invest in us because we have world-class swimmers and Tornadoes is a world-class club and I just want to say thank you and we are appreciative,” she added. “The Caribbean Games, Pan Am Aquatics, World Juniors, and Commonwealth Games are coming up and these athletes are going to represent Jamaica very well and I am thankful that they are getting the opportunity [to prepare].”

President of Tornadoes Swim Club Kamilah Hylton is looking forward to the return of the meet and underlined its value in helping to develop top athletes and individuals.

“This is going to be an exciting event, we are talking about world-class swimmers at a world-class event, so we are very excited. It has been two years since our last event so we do have a lot planned and we are expecting that at every step of the way, we will be seeing a lot of excitement,” Hylton said.

“For us, we believe sport is one of the many tools that is utilised to develop complete human beings and so when an athlete gets up every morning and comes to training and decides to execute, its promoting diligence and excellence and these are skills an individual will need in life; dealing with disappointment, we don’t win every race and so we believe that in preparing these athletes, we are actually preparing individuals for life,” said Hylton.

Meanwhile, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Denzil Thorpe, praised the club for its work over the years.

“Congratulations must go out to the Tornadoes Swim Club for 33 years of existence and swimming excellence and 25 years of hosting the annual invitational meet. The Government, through the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Sport Development Foundation and Independence Park Limited, are committed to the development of sport and swimming is no exception,” said Thorpe.

Wisynco, through its Wata brand, as well as Tewani Limited are the main sponsors of the meet, which gets underway at 5:30pm tomorrow.

“We have more sponsorship than we have ever had before, this is a record-breaking year for us. I don’t think we have ever had two platinum sponsors or $2-million worth of sponsorship so this is a record-breaking meet all around and it’s because of the support of the sponsorship that we have,” Lee beamed.

— Andre Lowe