Olympian Roy Allan Burch and his Swim Mac Elite Swimming teammates will be in Bermuda training at the National Sports Center.
This on the heels of the 4 Day Schroders Spring Swimming Championships Meet at the BASA Pool and the start of the Carifta Swimming Championships in Martinique, Burch will accompany his teammates to his home island.
Included in the Swim Mac Elite stable is the likes of Cullen Jones, who earned a gold medal as part of the world record-breaking 4x100 freestyle relay in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In the 2012 Olympics, he won gold in the 400 medley relay, a silver in the 400 free relay, and an individual silver medal in the 50 meter freestyle.
Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace is a Bahamian Olympic swimmer whose name is sprinkled throughout the Bahamas Swimming Federation’s record books from the 9-10 year old age group and up. She competed in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and finished 8th in the 50 freestyle in London, making history at the time as the first Bahamian woman ever to qualify for the finals in a swimming event. Arianna claimed four gold medals and two meet records at the 2014 Central American and Caribbean Games in Veracruz, Mexico, and was named as the Bahamas' 2015 Senior Swimmer of the Year. At the 2015 Pan American Games, Arianna won the 50 free and broke the meet record, and also earned the bronze in the 100m free.
Kirsty Coventry competed in her first Olympics at age 16 and has since become one of the most decorated athletes in Olympic history. Representing her home country of Zimbabwe, Kirsty competed in Sydney, Athens (1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), Beijing (3 silver, 1 gold) and London, bringing home a combined seven Olympic medals. Kirsty has held world records in the 200 IM, 400 IM, 100 backstroke and 200 backstroke.
And of course Burch is an Olympic and national-record holding swimmer. He began swimming at age four for safety reasons, and has gone on to represent Bermuda since 2007 at the FINA World Championships, and at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. His preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games was interrupted in March 2015 by a bi-lateral patella rupture in both knees that required immediate surgery and extensive recovery time. Roy returned to competition at the Arena Pro Swim Series in Minneapolis in November 2015 and is working toward the Bermuda Olympic Association standard to qualify for the 2016 team. Roy earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Springfield College in Massachusetts, with concentrations in marketing, business and management.
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