– Jessica Stephenson bags second and third gold medals at CARIFTA this year
Jessica Stephenson
The first time she competed at CARIFTA, she captured just one gold medal in the 200m breaststroke. In her second year she doubled up, winning both the 100m and 200m breaststroke events.
This year, she made her intentions clear from the start. She was aiming for a sweep of the breaststroke events and although it was her first year in the age group, she delivered.
Jessica Stephenson wrapped up an emphatic clean sweep of the sprint breaststroke events at the 2010 CARIFTA Swimming Championship in Barbados, with gold medals in the 50m and 100m breaststroke events, after winning the 200m last Saturday. Stephenson has now claimed six CARIFTA gold medals in just three CARIFTA Games.
On Tuesday, the rain and evening chills on a windy night, as described by Jessica’s mother Davina Stephenson, were not enough to prevent Jessica from racing to her eight CARIFTA medal in the Girls’ 15-17 100m breaststroke. The 16-year old Trinidad and Tobago-based Guyanese swimmer clocked 1:15.57s, not a personal record but enough to capture Guyana’s sixth gold medal in the history of the CARIFTA swimming championships.
Stephenson had also nabbed gold on Monday night when she swam a personal record of 34.44 seconds to win the girls’ 15-17 50m breaststroke ahead of Kelia Serramoglia of Guadeloupe (34.51) and Evita Leter (35.01) of Suriname.
The Dorado/Marlins Swim club breaststroke maestro had been hunting a gold medal since she started winning medals at CARIFTA. Leter had won the Girls’ 13-14 50m breaststroke in record time (35.0) last year and Stephenson settled for a close third place finish and her second CARIFTA bronze medal.
Having won both the 100m and 200m breaststroke events in previous editions of the Caribbean’s most prestigious junior swimming championships, Stephenson said it was her intention this year to win the 50m gold. The record holder of the 15-17 50m breaststroke is Jamaica breaststroke and Central American and Caribbean (CAC) gold medallist Alia Atkinson. Atkinson, who has competed at the Olympic Games, and two Commonwealth Games, had met and advised Stephenson at last year’s CAC Games.
