Cayman’s top age-group swimmers won 34 medals at CARIFTA 2025 over Easter weekend, as a new-look team put together a strong four days of racing across the pool and ocean in Trinidad.
The squad, which returned home laden with silverware on Wednesday evening, placed fourth in the Caribbean in both the medal table and overall points standings after the pool proceedings were completed in Couva, before picking up a further two podium finishes in the open water 5km race on the final day of the competition.
Among the country’s top performers were multi-gold-medal winners Dominic Hilton, Lennox Turnham-Wheatley, Sierrah Broadbelt and Lev Fahy. The latter two also finished as the leading points scorers in their respective age groups across the entire meet.
Cayman Aquatics president Steve Broadbelt said he was “incredibly proud” of this year’s group, half of whom were CARIFTA debutants.
“This young team managed to fight off Barbados in the overall team standings, as well as other much bigger countries than Cayman,” he told the Compass.
“The three teams ranked higher than us — Bahamas, Jamaica and hosts Trinidad and Tobago — all have their own 50-metre pool [the format in which CARIFTA is held] to train in, too.”
Noting that the “big message” was that all 34 swimmers on the team scored points in either individual or relay events, Broadbelt added, “The future is bright for our athletes, with 17 of our team making their CARIFTA debut. They will be back for more next year in Martinique.”
Day 1: Distance dominance
On the opening night of competition last Saturday, co-captains Broadbelt, 16, and Hilton, 18, led the charge for the podium, winning gold in their favoured races: the 100-metre butterfly and 200-metre breaststroke, respectively.
That was Hilton’s second swim and second CARIFTA title of the evening, following his victory in the 1500-metre freestyle less than an hour earlier.
Long distance events have long been a staple in Cayman’s yearly medal hopes, and this edition of the regional championships proved no different. After 2024 medallist Riley Watson finished just shy of the 800-metre freestyle podium, touching fourth despite entering a new age category this year, Turnham-Wheatley cruised to gold in the 13-14-year-old 1500-metre freestyle, with Gabriel Bispath taking the bronze in that race.
Day one also brought a first gold medal of the meet for Fahy, 14, in the 50-metre backstroke, an event which earned standout 11-year-old Lauren Travers a maiden bronze medal on her CARIFTA debut. There was then another bronze for rising star Eli Bain in the 13-14-year-old 100-metre butterfly final, before the Stingray Swim Club athlete teamed up with Fahy, Turnham-Wheatley and Bispath to secure second place in the 4×100-metre freestyle relay.
Day 2: Trifecta for versatile Fahy, medley mayhem
As the sun began to set on Easter Sunday, Fahy’s versatility shone through in the form of tri-coloured medals across three different strokes and distances.
There was a bronze in the 50-metre butterfly, a silver in the 200-metre freestyle and a gold in the 100-metre backstroke for the 14-year-old phenom, with young Travers doubling her own running medal count with a bronze in her age category of the latter event.
Broadbelt bagged two more of her own individual medals, combining silver in her 50-metre butterfly final with her second gold in as many days, this time in the 400-metre individual medley (IM).
Swimming’s ‘all-rounder event’, 100-metres of each stroke, proved to be a gold mine for a Caymanian squad that swept three-straight races in the event, with Turnham-Wheatley touching first in the 13-14 boys age group and Hilton earning top spot in the 15-17 boys category.
Then came relay time, as Fahy and Turnham-Wheatley stepped back behind the blocks alongside Bain and Bispath to grab gold in the 4×100-metre medley.
That victory marked double delight in the 13-14-year-old medley relays, right after the quartet of Anna Oldfield, Keziah Thomas, Cassidy Coles and Lucy Butler had secured a bronze medal in the previous event.
Day 3: Broadbelt and Fahy doubles, 13-14 relay strikes gold again
On day three, high-point winners Fahy and Broadbelt snapped up silvers in their respective 200-metre IM finals.
They were one of two individual medals in that session for each athlete, with Fahy taking another silver in the 100-metre freestyle and Broadbelt dominating the 200-metre butterfly, winning by almost six seconds.
Easter Monday’s remaining individual events brought several near misses.
The 200-metre IM, 100-metre freestyle and 200-metre butterfly each saw three other Caymanian finalists come within a few places of the podium, as did the 50-metre breaststroke. Travers (200 IM, 100 freestyle), Bain (100 freestyle, 200 butterfly) and Hilton (200 IM, 50 breaststroke) featured in two medal races a piece.
But then came the 4×200-metre freestyle relay, an event in which Cayman has consistently medalled over the last decade.
The weekend’s relay heroes, team Turnham-Wheatley, Fahy, Bispath and Bain, ensured that trend continued by winning their 13-14-year-old boys final.
Day 4: Elite endurance and backstroke brilliance
As the pool events drew to a close on day four, there were still plenty of medals to be contested — and won — by Team Cayman.
First up was a return to mid-long distance racing with the 400-metre freestyle and boys’ 800-metre freestyle.
Fahy’s bronze was the 345’s sole medal in the former, but there were four more finalists across the age categories — Turnham-Wheatley, Watson, Butler and Travers — that finished between fourth and eighth.
Turnham-Wheatley found his way back onto the podium over 800 metres, though, as did Hilton in the age group above as Cayman’s two endurance kings continued their dominance of the distance events. Bispath almost added to his bronze in the 1500-metre freestyle here but was forced to settle for fourth.
Fahy starred once again to close out his 2025 CARIFTA account in style, notching his second and third medals of the night with a bronze in the 50-metre freestyle and gold in the 200-metre backstroke. As well as taking him to 12 total medals in Trinidad, those successes also meant he managed a clean sweep of the backstroke events in addition to podium finishes across four freestyle distances, from the 50 to the 400.
In the 200-metre backstroke, Travers — “one to watch” next year, as she comes in at the top of her age group rather than the bottom — placed second, and there were moments of relief for two swimmers who had come close to the podium all meet long.
The first was Watson, who had previously edged closer and closer to a top-three finish during individual final appearances on four-straight days before securing a bronze medal here in one of her signature events.
In the next race, and the last individual final of the competition, Luke Higgo then followed with fifth and fourth-place results in the 50 and 100-metre backstroke events earlier in the week with a silver over 200 metres.
Day 5: Open water double for distance kings
The competition pool quieted by Wednesday morning, with attention turning instead to the coast for the 5km open water races.
After an hour of all-out swimming, Turnham-Wheatley battled to the top of the podium once more to win gold in the 14-15-year-old boys’ event, with Bispath, a member of the chasing pack, finishing sixth.
That came after Watson had again come close to a medal in her own race, ending up fourth behind competitors from open water powerhouses Martinique and Guadeloupe.
But there was still time for another Caymanian medal, in the form of Hilton’s silver from the 16-18-year-old boys event.
