Bahamas: Rhanishka Gibbs set new 50-metre breaststroke PB, CR, Bahamian 15-17 record and CARIFTA and CCCAN junior best of 32.29. In 2022 Bahamian Rhanishka Gibbs had her breakout year.
Lifespan 007 Open Water Swim took to Facebook and stated that at CARIFTA in Trinidad and Tobago she won Bronze in the 15-17 age group in 33.21, athen PB. She would get her first national senior cap at the 2022 Commonwealth Games where she just missed the semi finals with a swim of 33.28. She would later take on the world’s best youngsters at the World Junior Championships. There she had the best Bahamian place for a girl in that event making the semi finals where she posted a time of 33.46 for 14th overall.
According to Lifespan, she showed her cards when she swam 32.89 at the end of the year. At the 2023 CARIFTA swimming championships in Curaçao earned the title of the fastest junior swimmer in the 50 metre breaststroke from the CARIFTA and CCCAN regions. Competing in the the heats she posted a time of 32.29. That time lowered the 2017 CR 32.70 of countrywoman and CARIFTA great Lilly Higgs.
It also beat the former longstanding CARIFTA junior best of 32.59 by Jamaican Olympian Alia Atkinson from the semi finals of the 2006 Commonwealth Games.She also bettered the best CARIFTA junior time and Bahamian 15-17 mark of 32.52 also held by Higgs.
Lilly set that time en route to a historic Silver medal at the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games. She claimed the number one spot for both the CARIFTA and CCCAN regions as she bettered the time of 32.37 set by Panamanian rising star Emily Santos TYR Pro Swim Series in Fort Lauderdale. In the final she would take Gold in a time of 32.88. Silver went to the Cayman Islands Lila Higgo in a CIASA record 32.98 and the Bronze to Saint Lucian Naima Hazell in 33.44.
Gibbs will heading to Texas Christian University this September along with countryman Nigel Forbes.There they will join forces by Antigua and Barbuda’s breaststroke star Jadon Wuilliez. In just her second year in the age group the following stats show her development.It took 32.52 to make the 2022 World Junior Final,31.99 to medal at the 2018 CAC Games and 31.43 to make the 2022 Commonwealth Games final.
