halfway mark of the five-day Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships in Aruba yesterday.

Graham Smith struck gold in the 15-17 100 metres breaststroke, while Ronald Cowen did likewise in the senior (18-21) 200 metres freestyle. And Jessica Sousa added a bronze to the haul with her third place finish in the 15-17 200 backstroke.

Cowen's winning time of 2:01.24 in Saturday's final was outside the Olympic qualifying time, but he had a second chance to book his place in Sydney last night in his preferred event, the 100 freestyle.

After yesterday's heats, Cowen was seeded one for last night's final. The results were not available at the time of going to press.

Seventeen-year-old Smith was also looking for his second gold last night in the 15-17 200 breaststroke and he was also top seed, having posted a time of 2:30.23 in heats.

Smith had claimed Bermuda's first gold of the competition on the opening day, Friday, winning the 15-17 100 breaststroke in a time of 1:08.32.

Sousa earned her bronze medal by clocking 2:37.28 in Saturday's 15-17 200 backstroke final.

Anastasia Lau broke the three-minute barrier in 11-12 200 breaststroke to earn fifth place, while Kiera Aitken set a new national age group record in finishing sixth in the 15-17 200 freestyle, clocking 2:18.63.

Sixteen countries are competing in the biennial event, with Trinidad and Tobago and Puerto Rico proving the strongest countries.

National swimming coach Richard Goodwin said yesterday: "At the halfway mark, we stood seventh out of 16 countries with our small team of 18 swimmers.

"We are operating on a 50 percent swimmers to finals ratio and that is very pleasing.''