The 2026 edition of the CARIFTA Games, one of the Caribbean’s most prestigious youth athletic competitions, broke with tradition this year by spreading its two core disciplines across two separate island host locations. From April 4 to 8, the CARIFTA Aquatics Championships welcomed over 500 regional swimmers to the Le Lamentin facility in Martinique, a French overseas department, while track and field events unfolded between April 4 and 6 at Grenada’s iconic Kirani James Stadium.\n\nFor Team Haiti, the 2026 Games will go down in history as a breakthrough performance, with the nation securing a total of six medals: two gold, two silver, and two bronze across swimming and athletics. The highlight of Haiti’s campaign came in the pool, where a small three-person delegation delivered the country’s best ever swimming results at the regional competition.\ Seventeen-year-old Christian Jérome emerged as Haiti’s undisputed star of the Games, claiming two gold medals and one silver in butterfly events. Jérome clocked 55.23 seconds to take top honors in the men’s 100m butterfly, followed by a winning time of 2:07.75 in the 200m butterfly. He added a silver medal in the 50m butterfly with a finish of 24.9 seconds, and further cemented his status as a rising Haitian swimming star by breaking his own country’s national record in the 50m backstroke, posting a new benchmark time of 28.97 seconds. Jérome’s two teammates, Jude Jérome and Mayah Chouloute, also turned in strong performances, both hitting new personal best times over the course of the aquatics competition.\n\nOn the track in Grenada, Haiti’s seven-member all-female athletics delegation exceeded pre-Games expectations by meeting the Haitian Athletics Federation’s explicit target of at least three podium finishes, adding one silver and two bronze medals to the country’s overall count. In the under-17 women’s 400m hurdles, Hope Edwards claimed silver with a time of 1:02.48. Breanne Barnett took bronze in the under-20 women’s 200m sprint with a 23.49-second finish, while Aisha Wajid rounded out the athletics medal haul with bronze in the under-17 women’s 800m, clocking 2:14.96.\n\nThe historic six-medal performance marks a new milestone for Haitian youth sports, highlighting the emergence of talented young athletes across both swimming and track disciplines at one of the Caribbean’s most competitive regional youth sporting events.