Crooks puts Cayman on podium on first day of swimming

The Cayman Islands picked up a bronze medal courtesy Jordan Crooks in the men’s 50m backstroke on the opening day of swimming at the XVIII NatWest International Island Games in Gibraltar on Monday 8 July.

Crooks, 17, making his Island Games debut, touched the wall in 25.45 seconds behind gold medallist Harry Shalamon of Jersey (24.31) and Guernsey’s Thomas Hollingsworth (25.29).

“It was a lot of fun. I had a great time going into the finals and I did my best time in the end. I’m really proud of it,” said the Camana Bay Aquatic Club swimmer. “It’s really different because I’ve never competed against people of this level of swimming. It’s a nice change from meets like Carifta and CCCAN.”

Having his parents who made the trip to support him, along with his sister and teammate, Jillian, to witness his first Island Games medal only served to make the moment more special for Crooks.  “The whole family is here. Everyone is cheering for everyone. It’s just a great time,” he said.

That was Cayman’s third medal of the games with the other two coming in athletics: Louis Gordon – gold (men’s high jump) and Danneika Lyn – silver (women’s 100m).

Cayman just missed out on the podium in other events with 4^th place finishes in the Women’s 400m Individual Medley (Samantha Bailey 5:09.10), Women’s 200m freestyle (Alison Jackson 2:04.91), and Men’s 200m Individual Medley (Cole Morgan 2:06.76).

The 4 x 50m freestyle relay team of Samantha Bailey, Jillian Crooks, Alison Jackson and Kyra Rabess also fell one spot short of the podium in a competitive final with a time of 1:47.59, after being the quickest in the preliminaries.

John Bodden was 5^th in the men’s 1500m freestyle (16:51.67) and 8^th in the 200m butterfly (2:14.23).

Swimming continues on Tuesday 9 July.

Summary of Day 1 swimming results:

Men’s 1500m freestyle – final

5^th John Bodden CAY 16:51.67

Women’s 400m Individual Medley – final

4^th Samantha Bailey CAY 5:09.10

Women’s 400m Individual Medley – preliminaries

4^th Samantha Bailey CAY 5:12.79

11^th Avery Lambert CAY 5:26.49

Men’s 200m butterfly – final

8^th John Bodden CAY 2:14.23

Women’s 400m butterfly – final

6^th Jillian Crooks CAY 1:04.18

Women’s 400m butterfly – preliminaries

4^th Jillian Crooks CAY 1:04.96

11^th Kyra Rabess CAY 1:08.11

Women’s 50m Breaststroke – preliminaries

19^th Jillian Crooks CAY 38.47

Men’s 50m backstroke – final

3^rd Jordan Crooks CAY 25.45 (preliminaries 26.05)

Women’s 200m freestyle – final

4^th Alison Jackson CAY 2:04.91(preliminaries 2:05.80)

Women’s 200m freestyle – preliminaries

4^th Allison Jackson CAY 2:05.80

11^th Raya Embury-Brown CAY 2:10.53

Men’s 200m Individual Medley – final

4^th Cole Morgan CAY 2:06.76 (preliminaries 2:07.80)

Women’s 4 x 50m Freestyle Relay – final

4^th CAY (Samantha Bailey, Jillian Crooks, Alison Jackson and Kyra Rabess) 1:47.59

*were quickest in preliminaries (1:48.76)

Related Posts

• 
  Tennis ace Oskar Bjuroe wins prestigious scholarship
• 
  Intense play as corporate squash heads into final week
• 
  A historic first for Latinos FC

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.