Sea Jays Swim Club took the overall team title at the 2026 OceanSpray Short Course National Swimming Championships, held at their home pool, the Rodney Heights Aquatic Centre, racking up 1,360 points to finish well clear of the field. As reported by St. Lucia Times, nearly 200 swimmers competed across the weekend, with seven age-group records falling along the way.
Sharks Swim Club came second on 967.5 points, while hosts Rodney Heights Aquatic Club surprised their rivals by taking third with 468. RR Aquatic Swim Club followed on 426, Lightning Aquatics on 390.5, Southern Flying Fish on 183 and Emerald Aquatics, visiting from Dominica, on 121.
Sea Jays also claimed the boys division with 813 points, well ahead of Sharks on 370.50 and Rodney Heights Aquatic Club on 306. Sharks reversed the order among the girls, finishing on 597 points with Sea Jays on 547 and RR Aquatic on 198.
The standout swimmer of the meet, as she has been so often, was Sea Jays' Sapphire Parks. The CARIFTA Aquatics champion claimed five of the seven records set, all in the 11-12 girls category, and won every one of her 11 events on the way to 99 individual points. Among her new marks were 2:13.50 in the 200-metre freestyle, 30.65 seconds in the 50-metre backstroke and 1:07.92 in the 100-metre backstroke.
She also took down two records belonging to Fayth Jeffrey. Her 4:48.08 in the 400-metre freestyle shaved more than two seconds off the 2021 time of 4:50.76, while in the 200-metre individual medley she clocked 2:32.32, beating the 2022 figure of 2:33.75.
Two more records went in the 11-12 boys division. Lightning Aquatics' Jayce Daniel won the 400-metre freestyle in 4:36.61, quicker than the 4:39.68 Jamarr Archibald set in 2015, and Sea Jays' Tyler Dantes lowered his own 50-metre backstroke standard to 29.57 seconds from 29.90. Dantes topped the age group on 84 points with Daniel second on 55.
Age-group champions were crowned across every division. In the under-9 class, RR Aquatic took both titles through Kaelah Octave on 63 points and Liam Charlemagne on 61. Sea Jays' Amber Francois won the 9-10 girls with 75 points, ahead of Sharks' Zoe Fortune on 72, while clubmate Miles Andrew took the boys on 72, with RR Aquatic's Andrew Charlemagne on 54. Unattached swimmer Caden Calderon dominated the 13-14 boys with 97 points, ahead of Sea Jays' Nathan Lewis on 66, and Sea Jays' Aniyah George won the girls group on 69 from Jaimie Devaux on 58. Rodney Heights Aquatic Club's Bella Delaire edged Kayla-Marise Inglis of Sharks 73 to 72 in the 15-17 girls, with Sea Jays' Jayden Xu winning the boys on 88 ahead of Noah Dorville on 77. In the 18-plus category, Sharks' Mikaili Charlemagne and Sea Jays' Shemar James each won every race they entered to finish level on 54 points.
Denise Parks, acting president of Sea Jays, was delighted with the standard of the 14th edition of the championships, which drew a field of around 190 swimmers. She noted that competitors from every club had improved their times, and praised Rodney Heights Aquatic Club's climb onto the podium, saying the club stages the meet precisely to draw those performances out of swimmers who train hard through the summer and look forward to the event all year.
She added that the championships grow year on year, with swimmers chasing qualifying times for the OECS and sponsors increasingly buying into the sport. Her ambition, she said, is to see Saint Lucian youngsters develop to the point where they can compete abroad at the highest level.
The weekend doubled as a qualifying meet for the Saint Lucia Aquatics Federation, which now turns its attention to team selection for the OECS Swimming Championships. Saint Lucia hosts that event next month, giving local swimmers a home pool advantage as they aim to convert their national form into regional medals.
For visitors, the results underline how much sport in Saint Lucia matters to the island's young people, with swimming now producing regional champions alongside athletics and football. Families booking holidays to St Lucia often find that junior sport is thriving at club level, and meets like this at the Rodney Heights Aquatic Centre are sometimes open to spectators who want to see the next generation in action.
The venue sits among the island's most convenient tourist corridors, close to many of the hotels in St Lucia's north-west, from family-friendly all-inclusive resorts in St Lucia to quieter luxury hotels in St Lucia along the Cap Estate coast. It makes a swim meet an easy addition to any list of things to do in St Lucia, particularly for families whose children swim competitively themselves.
With the OECS championships arriving next month, the island's swimming calendar is entering its busiest stretch. For anyone timing a trip, the weeks around major meets can be a good reason to check the best time to visit St Lucia, and direct flights to St Lucia make it straightforward for visiting supporters to follow their national teams to the pool. Whether you stay a few nights or have thought carefully about how many days in St Lucia you need, the north of the island offers enough to fill the gaps between sessions.
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