Guyana: In a pool named for a great swimmer Enith Brigitha who had historic swims for herself and the region Guyanese Raekwon Noel created history for himself and his nation at the 2023 CARIFTA swimming championship in Curaçao.
Lifespan 007 Open Water Swim took to Facebook to share the update. It stated that before the championships started Noel’s best place was fifth in the 1500 metre freestyle in 2018. Also no Guyanese boy had ever won a medal and there was no more than three Gold medals at a single competition. He changed all those statistics and recorded Guyana’s best ever performance. In the 400 metre freestyle he won in dominant fashion and crushed his national record of 4:11.04.
Noel put up splits of 58.42,1:01.77,1:02.14 and 1:01.24 to stop the clock in 4:03.57. That is the fifth fastest winning performance in the history of meet. He is the sixth fastest CARIFTA junior of all time. The list reads at number 5 Aruban Patrick Groters at 4:02.64, his winning 2017 CARIFTA time. Fourth is his countryman Daniel Jacobs with his 2018 age group record of 4:01.25.
Third is Barbadian Damian Alleyne who reigned as the CARIFTA record holder from the 2000 championships when he produced 4:03.22. His best was the regional standard from the 2000 Olympics at 3:58.12. The CARIFTA mark lasted until the 2012 championships when Guadeloupe’s Joris Bouchaut became CARIFTA’s first sub 4 minute swimmer at 3:59.79. He would take that down to 3:57.32 later that year.
The regional standard is held by another Olympian from Barbados Alex Sobers. Sobers would win the CARIFTA 400 free title in 2015 and 2016 with swims of 4:00.62 and 4:02.01 respectively. He would set his CARIFTA region watermark at the now defunct Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships in 2016 in The Bahamas at 3:57.30.
With this being the breakout year for Noel look for to challenge for the top spot. Also in his sights will be the PAN AM Games A cut of 3:55.61 and the World Champs B cut of 3:56.14.
