Jamaicans Excel in New York

by Anthony Morrison-Vincent

February 14, 2005

At the 2004 Edition of the Liberty Championship held December 03-04 in Clinton, New York, Hamilton College finished second to Renesselar Polytechnic with good contributions from their Jamaican students Todd Johnson (Y Speedos Swim Club) and Andrew Saunders (Tornadoes Swim Club).

On the first day of the competition Saunders got the ball rolling by leading off Hamilton to a new record in the 200 yard free relay. Saunders 21.93 (25.21), Tae Chung 21.73 (24.98), Andrew Fink 21.81 (25.07) and Aran Lawrence 20.58 (23.66) set a new record of 1:26.05 (1:38.34). They were just off the NCAA ‘B’ consideration time of 1:25.19 (1:37.36). Saunders later that day picked up a bronze in the 50 free clocking a 21.90 (25.17), Todd Johnson finished seventh in 22.81 (26.22).

Johnson ended the day with a gold when he opened up a 4 second lead on eventual second place Renesselar Polytechnic when he clocked 54.44 (1:02.57) for the opening leg of the 400 yard relay. Hamilton went with Johnson’s momentum to set a new relay record, Chung breaststroke 59.71 (1:09.03), Fink butterfly 53.68 (1:00.66) and Aran Lawrence 46.42 (53.36) the freestyle leg completed the course in 3:34.24 (4:06.25) ahead of Renesselar Polytechnic 3:42.66.

Day 2 saw the Hamilton swimmers yet again in the medals. This time both Jamaicans combined to get in on the relay record breaking trend. Johnson led off the 200 yard medley relay team in 24.86 (28.57) to give Chung 27.06 (31.28) the breaststroke leg yet another big lead over Renesselar Polytechnic. Fink the butterfly leg 23.54 (26.60) and Saunders 21.04 (24.18) the freestyle continued to extend their dominance and stop the clock 1:36.50 (1:51.56) a new record, just off by less than a second of the NCAA ‘B’ consideration time of 1:35.69 (1:50.62).

Todd later got the Silver in the 100 yard backstroke to D J Hogenkamp of Union College. Todd went out well in 25.85 (29.71) to D J’s 25.91 (29.79) but just missed out on the victory slapping the pads in 52.92 (1:00.83) to D J’s 52.50 (1:00.34) a time Johnson had clocked earlier this season. Saunders picked up his silver when he touched in at 53.87 (1:00.87) in the 100 yard butterfly. He also had a 6^th place finish in the 100 yard breaststroke 1:03.05 (1:12.87).

Day 3 had Saunders clocking 48.58 (55.84) for a 4^th place finish in the 100 yard freestyle he had split 23.67 (27.21) en route to his final placing. Later in the evening Saunders lifted his “game” to help complete the Hamilton relay shut out when he led off the 400 yard free relay 47.59 (54.70) with a split time of 23,17 (26.63) as had Hamilton had a total winning time of 3:12.10.

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