00:00No masseuse, athletes sleep-deprived after doubling up and tripling up on races and still pushing their bodies to the
00:07limit.
00:07That's part of the experience that head coach of the national swimming team, Deron Samlalsingh, says athletes faced at the
00:14Crypto Aquatics Championships.
00:15He still believes that the team did well.
00:17Athletes were tired all through the meets. They complained about it from the first day, second day.
00:22They were just sleep-deprived and this hampered performance greatly.
00:26In addition to not having a masseuse or somebody who could help aid in recovery, right?
00:34After swimming, I mean, they are athletes who had two, three, even four events on an evening, right?
00:41After four events or five events on a morning, right?
00:45And it's unfair to them. It's unfair to them to have to put out the level of effort needed in
00:51such short periods to put it out.
00:53And, I mean, they did exceptionally well.
00:57Yadid, this affected their ability to perform in their main races.
01:00Having a short team, we had to try to fill in athletes in different races, the triangle points.
01:07And this, in addition to not having somebody to have them recover, would have drained athletes.
01:13So, athletes who should have performed better in their main races, so there were athletes who were seeded second fastest
01:19or third fastest,
01:20who, by the time that race came along, they already put in so many events, they were drained.
01:24So, I mean, trying to find that balance is where we need to get.
01:28He also would like to see them maximising the quota of swimmers allowed on the team.
01:32He said they were allowed 36 but only carried 31.
01:35For example, there were persons who did not make qualifying times.
01:40They qualified for the team via relays because you can qualify via relays.
01:44And they were slotted into events.
01:46And they medalled.
01:47Multiple medalists we have that did not qualify.
01:51And I think the criteria needs to be reviewed.
01:54Now, he believes it's time for the team to build towards their next tournament.
01:58Moving forward, I'd like to see us implement a squad from earlier, long list.
02:06So, whatever the criteria may be, we implement a group of persons that we want to start training from as
02:13early as the end of this month.
02:15These persons are in a kind of training camp where it is catered towards CARIFTA 2027.
02:21It would mean improving on their weaker areas.
02:24There are areas where we could see the weaknesses.
02:28The longer races, we had one person in one of the races and two, one male, one female.
02:35So, we've given away points.
02:36200 fly.
02:37There were certain events that we saw the bigger countries just take off on us with points.
02:44304 TV6 Board.
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