The 14th annual 2026 OceanSpray Short Course National Swimming Championships wrapped up at the Rodney Heights Aquatic Centre this past weekend, drawing nearly 200 competitive swimmers from across the region, and closing with the host Sea Jays Swim Club claiming the overall combined team title in dominant fashion.
Finishing with a cumulative total of 1,360 points across all divisions and age groups, Sea Jays outpaced every other competing club to secure the top spot on the team podium. The Sharks Swim Club took second place with a total of 967.5 points, while host-city rival Rodney Heights Aquatic Club pulled off a surprising upset to claim third place with 468 points, edging out fourth-place RR Aquatic Swim Club (426 points) and fifth-place Lightning Aquatics (390.5 points). Rounding out the top seven teams were Southern Flying Fish in sixth with 183 points, and Emerald Aquatics, a guest delegation from the Commonwealth of Dominica, which finished seventh with 121 points.
In divisional competition, Sea Jays claimed the boys’ overall title with 813 points, leaving Sharks (370.5 points) and Rodney Heights Aquatic Club (306 points) trailing in second and third respectively. Sharks countered with a win in the girls’ division, notching 597 points to hold off Sea Jays, who finished just behind with 547 points, while RR Aquatic rounded out the top three in the girls’ division with 198 points.
The standout performance of the entire championships came from Sea Jays’ own Sapphire Parks, a rising star who continued her streak of dominant swimming. Over the course of the weekend, seven new age-group records were set at the meet, and Parks alone claimed five of those new marks, all in the highly competitive 11-12 girls category. Already a CARIFTA Aquatics champion, Parks accumulated a staggering 99 individual points at the meet – and won every single one of the 11 events she entered.
Parks’ record-breaking performances included new times of 2:13.50 in the 200-metre freestyle and 30.65 seconds in the 50-metre backstroke, along with a 1:07.92 finish in the 100-metre backstroke. She also knocked down two long-standing records previously held by Fayth Jeffrey: she clocked 4:48.08 in the 400-metre freestyle, beating Jeffrey’s 2021 record of 4:50.76, and finished the 200-metre individual medley in 2:32.32, lowering Jeffrey’s 2022 mark of 2:33.75.
Two additional records fell in the 11-12 boys division. Jayce Daniel of Lightning Aquatics set a new benchmark in the 400-metre freestyle with a time of 4:36.61, breaking the 4:39.68 record set by Jamarr Archibald back in 2015. Sea Jays’ own Tyler Dantes also earned a record, posting a 29.57-second finish in the 50-metre backstroke to beat his own previous personal best of 29.90 seconds. Dantes went on to win the 11-12 boys overall title with 84 points, while Daniel took second with 55 points.
In individual age-group competition, RR Aquatic claimed both the boys’ and girls’ titles in the under-9 division: Kaelah Octave took the girls’ crown with 63 points, and Liam Charlemagne won the boys’ title with 61 points. Moving up to the 9-10 division, Sea Jays’ Amber Francois claimed the girls’ title with 75 points, just edging out Sharks’ Zoe Fortune who finished second with 72 points. Sea Jays also took top honors in the 9-10 boys division, with Miles Andrew earning 72 points to finish ahead of RR Aquatic’s Andrew Charlemagne, who notched 54 points for second place.
For the 13-14 age group, unattached swimmer Caden Calderon won the boys’ category with an impressive 97 points, leaving Nathan Lewis of Sea Jays in second with 66 points. On the girls’ side of the 13-14 division, Aniyah George of Sea Jays claimed first place with 69 points, followed by her Sea Jays clubmate Jaimie Devaux in second with 58 points. In the 15-17 division, Bella Delaire of Rodney Heights Aquatic Club took the girls’ title with 73 points, one point ahead of Sharks’ Kayla-Marise Inglis who finished with 72. Sea Jays’ Jayden Xu won the 15-17 boys’ division with 88 points, finishing ahead of second-place Noah Dorville with 77 points. Finally, in the 18-plus division, Sharks’ Mikaili Charlemagne and Sea Jays’ Shemar James both won every race they entered, each finishing with 54 points to claim their respective gender titles.
Denise Parks, acting president of Sea Jays, reflected on the success of the 14th annual edition of the championships, noting, “The meet was fantastic. We had about 190-something swimmers swimming for our 14th annual Ocean Spray swimming championships. We really had a lot of our swimmers drop in time from all clubs. It was interesting to see RHAC as well coming in third. This is why our Sea Jays host meets, to really bring out the performances in swimmers. I mean, they really work hard during the summer, and it’s a championship that they were looking forward to.”
Parks also highlighted the growing momentum of the event and the sport of swimming in the region, adding, “Year-on-year, Sea Jays’ championship is building. It’s exciting. The swimmers are excited for this event. They’re excited to make times for OECS. Our sponsors are really getting onboard, and understanding what swimming is really about. I mean, it is a sport that we see our youth really enjoy and something that they want to grow into and perform outside of Saint Lucia, and that’s what they’re looking forward to: to swim at the highest level.”
Beyond the on-deck competition and record-breaking performances, the 2026 OceanSpray Short Course National Championships served an important functional role for regional swimming: it acted as the official qualifier for the Saint Lucia Aquatics Federation, who will select their national team for the upcoming Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Swimming Championships, which Saint Lucia is scheduled to host next month.