ATHENS, Greece, CMC
REGIONAL swimming champion Bradley Ally is among the first from the English-speaking Caribbean listed to appear as full competition at the 2004 Olympics begins today.
After a midweek start in football and archery, a heavy programme of competition starts today and CARICOM (Caribbean Community) athletes are down to appear in swimming, badminton, shooting, sailing and equestrian.
Andrew MacKay will be the first of three Cayman Islands swimmers to race at the Aquatic Centre, ending a long road of hard work to qualify for the Olympics.
"It's really exciting to see these kids come through," Cayman coach Dave Kelsheimer told CMC Sport.
MacKay is in heat one of the men's 400-metre individual medley event in which the outstanding American Michael Phelps starts his bid to challenge the record seven-gold medal haul by fellow American Mark Spitz at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
MacKay, like most of the Caribbean swimmers here, is not within the performance time range to challenge for places in the finals, but he would consider topping his qualifying best four minutes 32.96 seconds a satisfying achievement.
Bahamian Jeremy Knowles and multiple 2003 CARIFTA champion Ally, of Barbados, will also go in the 400 IM.
Knowles, at 4:22.04, is the quickest of the Caribbean starters in the event, and clashes with Ally (4:23.48) in heat 2.
St. Lucian Natasha George, who won her country's first CARIFTA medal at the 2002 championship in Barbados, swims in heat one of the women's butterfly.
Jamaican badminton ace Nigella Saunders has a tough start to her campaign in the women's singles this morning.
Saunders created history in the Dominican Republic last year when she\ captured the women's singles to become the first Caribbean player to win a gold medal at the Pan American Games and her first round opponent is the fourth seed Mia Audina of the Netherlands.
Also, shooters Roger Daniel of Trinidad & Tobago, Chris Rice (US Virgin Islands), and Jamaican Dawn-Marie Kobayashi will all be taking aim today.
Daniel, a 2002 Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games champion, and Rice will contest the men s 10m air pistol event, and Kabayoshi is in the women's equivalent.
Bermuda will see competition in sailing and equestrian. Paula Lewin, Peta Lewin and Christine Patton start their bid in the women's yngling sailing event, while Delton Magna and Tim Collins begin their equestrian programme with the first horse inspection.
