During the Cariftas Games in Curaçao, which brought together twenty nations and no less than 450 swimmers, the French team representing Saint-Martin was made up of three swimmers who had achieved the qualifying minimums: Saphir Thomas (14 years old), Joey Schvartz (13 years old) and Matias Piazza (15).
Although a small team, the swimmers managed to reach several finals, a great performance considering that Joey and Matias were in a category where the swimmers were up to two years older than them.
The young Saint-Martin Joey Schvartz brought home the only medal this year with silver in the 1500m freestyle and finished 1st in the competition in his year of age in cumulative points. He came close to the bronze medal by a few hundredths in the 400 medleys by achieving the best French performance of the year, finishing 4rd in the 200 medley and 4rd on the 5km in open water. Thanks to all his new records, Joey is in the top 5 in France on all his races.
For her part, Saphir reached 3 finals with an 8th place in the 50 backstroke and a 7thrd place on the 400 crawl. She achieved the feat of finishing 7th in the final in the 100 crawl after having had to swim it twice in a row to decide between herself and reach the final. Saphir also finished close to the podium in the 5km in open water with fourth place.
Finally, Matias, who swam with competitors much older than him, managed to reach a final, that of the 200 butterfly where he finished sixth in the 15-17 category and second in his year of age. This announces great prospects for the next Cariftas Games where he will be among the oldest in the group, something that should make his job easier!
Between them, the swimmers of the Carib Swim Team set 14 new club records, including six adult records. This demonstrates once again that the competition group supervised by coach Steve Leal manages to train high-level swimmers.
The Saint-Martin team would like to thank the Collectivité for its support, which made this trip possible and gave these young swimmers a wonderful sporting adventure._AF
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