Local swimming history in the making

Immediately following this landmark event, Trinidad was chosen as the venue for the 1960 West Indies Swimming and Water Polo Championships — for the first and only time! Special mention must be made of the exceptionally hard work and assistance given to the West Indies President Mervyn Marquez and Secretary John Gatcliffe by Dave Barcant who always rendered yeoman service, Cecil Cipriani, Victor Jardine and Phillip Hadeed.

In spite of limited facilities the tournament was a great success. The swimming events were held at the Abbey School Pool, Mt St Benedict, which at the time had become the headquarters for swimming in Trinidad. This was also the venue for the 1960 Island Championships and the first official times were recorded!

The year 1959-1960 indeed saw local swimming history in the making.

In 1962, the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Association approved the selection of a water polo team and a lone swimmer (Joey Kaufmann) as part of the official contingent to the CAC Games in Jamaica – another first!

With the breaking up of the Federation, followed by the independence of the former British West Indies colonies (Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados), no triangular series or West Indies Swimming Championships were staged between 1962 and 1965. The series was revived in Barbados in April 1966 at a new 50-metre pool at North Point Surf Resort, St Lucy, Barbados, featuring many junior age group swimmers competing in open international competition for the first time. There was no competition in 1967 but Jamaica hosted the last triangular meet in 1968. On both these last two occasions Jamaica retained the overall championship. This too was the end of the early era in Trinidad and West Indies swimming history.

After 1962 a change in both organisations and venue saw an increased interest and participation in swimming generally. Following a few keep-fit meets at night between the Piers at the Trinidad Yacht Club organised by Gervais Rostant, younger swimmers began to show promise and a regular monthly keep-fit meet at the 25-yard salt water Shorelands Hotel Pool at Bayshore was organised by Joey Kaufmann and Mervyn Marquez between 1963 and 1965.

About this time Gordon Borde began to emerge as one of this country’s senior freestyle swimmers, excelling at all distances. Old stagers Samuel, Agard, Kaufmann, Davis, Jardine, Dash, Marquez continued to compete occasionally but a new and younger brigade was fast taking over. Most of the credit for this must go to Joey Kaufmann who began to coach and pioneer age group swimming in Trinidad.

The formation of Joey’s Blue Dolphins Swim Club gave a fillip to the sport and engendered healthy inter club rivalry which was shared in the ensuing years with Country Club, St Mary’s College, Abbey School, Flying Fish, Marlins UWI, all of which eventually either had or succeeded in having their own pools or training and increasing the venues for competitive swimming.

Between 1963 and 1972 swimming – particularly among the age groupers – became so popular the media often referred to swimming as Trinidad’s fastest growing sport, with CIC Pool initially being the Mecca. It would be impossible in this article to list the numerous events and names of all swimmers who participated over the years under review. Top of the list would have to be Geoffrey Ferreira who broke seven national records in his first year in competitive swimming.

Geoffrey went on to represent Trinidad at the Commonwealth Games in Canada and Scotland and other top international meets. He was this country’s first Olympic swimmer competing in the Mexico (1968) and Germany (Munich), (1972) Olympic Games, where he reached the semi- finals in the butterfly, contesting for honours with the likes of Mark Spitz, arguably the world’s greatest swimmer of all time.

Emanating from age group competition were some of our top national swimmers of their time: some of these included Richard Galt, Peter Laughlin, Johnny Littlepage, Peter de la Rosa, Richard Knaggs, Randy Attin, the Santos Brothers – Chris and Steve; the Ahloy Brothers, the Fahey Brothers – Roger and David; ‘Smiley’ Boland, Mike Perrin, Alan Date, Bruce Perreira, Rodney Bayne – to name but a few of the growing list of those times.

Mention must be made also of some of the first official Junior National Champions like Brian Lewis and Roger Barcant who was the first and only Trinidadian to represent the West Indies in the Junior Age group swimming. Later came George Bovell and Richard Fernandes both of whom won ‘Sports Personality of the Year’.

Among the girls, who had very much come into their own by this time, was our first ‘Queen of the Mermaids’ – Laura de Neef undisputed backstroke champion in her day and the first female swimmer to win a medal for Trinidad at the CAC Games; Jennifer Gatcliffe was the next top performer along with her twin sisters Christine and Katherine and cousin Patricia ‘Patty’ Gatcliffe (now de la Rosa), then Lorraine Boland, the Attin sisters, the Young sisters – the list goes on and on.

Some mention must be made of the birth of Masters Swimming. In 1982, at the invitation of Barbados, Joey Kaufmann, Gordon Borde and Mervyn Marquez got together a small team of former top mermen to compete at the First Caribbean Masters Meet to be staged at the Casurina Beach Resort Pool.

Thus was formed the Trinity Masters group; spearheaded by Joey, Gordon and Mervyn the rest of this first Trinidad Masters team included also veteran Lloyd ‘Reds’ Agard, the late Winston Questel, George Bovell, Geoffrey Ferreira, Esmond Pouchet, Louis Martin – an all male affair. Masters swimming has since grown considerably with more and more international participation by both male and female competitors – with ladies threatening to eclipse the males.

Footnote: This review was intended to cover the early pioneering years of Swimming in Trinidad and to highlight a few of the first set of outstanding events/performances, which left their mark in yesteryear. It is not a complete history of the sport and apologies are extended for any omissions.

Captions:

PIX 1: PIC 4: 1962 – CAC Games, Kingston, Jamaica. Front Row (l-r): Winston Questel (dec’d), Dave Barcant (dec’d), Lloyd ‘Reds’ Agard, Aldwyn Ayow (dec’d), Victor Jardine. Back Row (l-r): Joey Kaufmann (dec’d), David Daniel, Mervyn Marquez –(Player/Manager), Johnny Gatcliffe (Capt-Goalkeeper), Ken Sturge.