Barbados’ junior female swimming champion, Danielle Titus, has broken six national records and now the 17-year-old said that her goggles are firmly set on medalling at the Olympics one day.
Performing in the just-concluded 2019 Barbados Aquatic Sports Association Short Course National Swimming Championship, she bettered her own previous times in some events then went on to erase four other records, all in the girls 15-17 age group.
In her specialty events the Carifta gold medallist reduced the 29:77 secs she had set in the 50 metres freestyle to 29:22; and erased her previous national record of 1:03.02 in the 100 metres freestyle to 1:01.52.
She then put away another national record of 2:21.08 in the 200m freestyle by gliding in at 2:12.91.
Displaying growth in physical stature through the years in this age group, which she is about to exit, Titus went on to lower the 200m individual medley from 2:25.68 to 2:23.75.
Moving on up, she made history of the 200m freestyle record of 2:07.51 to clock 2:05.71.
She came in at 4:23.57 in the 400m freestyle, putting to bed the old time of 4:24.38.
When the six-day competition ended a week ago the youngster told Barbados TODAY newspaper that she used school competitions to train specifically to produce these performances at this year’s national championships.
“I have been doing more strokes now so I wanted to see where I was at and tried to improve for next year because I just can’t swim backstroke only. I decided to do all strokes like IM [individual medley], freestyle and the plan was just look for the records and go for them.”