BERMUDA will field its largest ever delegation at the Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships next month and Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association (BASA) president Ian Gordon is predicting a large medals haul.

Twenty four competitors aged 12 to 18 leave a week tomorrow for a week-long training camp in Florida in a pool run by two former US Olympians before heading to the games in Jamaica.

"I think we have a very strong team," said Mr. Gordon, "and I will be disappointed if we don't bring some silverware back in most of the age groups.

"For a small island we constantly produce swimmers that compete in the Olympics. This year is no exception.

"We have one identified in the form of Kiera Aitken, who's an outstanding athlete. There are two others who are on the cusp of qualifying ? Ronald Cowen and Graham Smith."

All three have been swimming in the BASA pool at Saltus since they were about eight years old, said Mr. Gordon.

"In December we have been invited to send four junior swimmers to the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia," he said.

The health of the sport here is surprising considering athletes can't qualify for the Olympics in Bermuda because competitors must swim qualifying times in a 50-metre pool which the island lacks.

"Despite the lack of facilities the sport of swimming is in pretty good shape," said Mr. Gordon.

"We have a solid group of athletes at the Olympic level this year and coming through over the next two to four years we have some great prospects for the Commonwealth Games and the next Olympics. We have a dedicated group of coaches.

"We also enjoy the support of the Bermuda Olympic Association (BOA) with regard to elite athlete funding. At the moment we are doing a fund-raising effort to support our junior swimmers.

"To send our team to Jamaica is probably going to cost in excess of $60,000 and that money will come from the most part from fund-raising.

"To prepare an athlete for swimming in the Olympics from April to August you are going to spend $20,000 per athlete, maybe more. It's a huge amount of money involved.

"There's travelling costs and coaching costs. These athletes have made huge sacrifices to get to the level they are at. We do everything we can to support them."

He used squash in Bermuda as an example of the way forward for his sport.

"They have a full-time club manager, a full-time coach and they have a development manager," Mr. Gordon said. "It helps with funding, networking, contacts.

"Swimming is heading in the same direction. We are trying to balance the costs and the benefit.

"If we are going to continue to be competitive, that is the direction we have to go in and every sport will have to go in.

"Otherwise you will not be able to compete for the corporate sponsorship which is becoming increasingly complicated to pursue. There's the importance of maintaining good networks overseas. All in all there are some challenges out there."

He sees Bermuda's international competitors being at the top of a pyramid which encompasses water sports at all levels. BASA is also responsible for diving, synchronised swimming and other aquatic sport.

In addition to the competitive swimming there are the popular endurance swimming, known as master swimming, which attracts around 150 regulars.

Elite swimming careers peak early with the bulk of competitors between ten and 24. "From the age of 24 upwards you can be considered a master swimmer," Mr. Gordon said. "Triathletes get involved.

"Masters progammes include everything from lap swimming to fairly intense training where people do 2-3,000 metres in a session.

"You can swim at your own pace or go into a structured, competitive environment. Certain masters sessions are geared to the triathletes where there is a more structured, intense programme.

"There's other sessions available for people wanting to be non-competitive but they still have the benefit of coaching. They will learn the fundamentals so they don't flounder around and they can make the most of their time."

He said there was a near 50/50 gender split in those turning out for sessions and that women have a different balance in the water from men.

"They tend to be much stronger with their kick," Mr. Gordon said. "It's one of the reasons when you see female masters swimming they tend to cruise up and down.

"Males have a different balance point and most struggle to kick well. Their strength in their swimming is all in the upper body. It's not always true but you can generalise that is generally the case.

"Swimming is more of an even playing field than other sports. Particularly with masters swimming ? they tend to be in lanes based in ability and you will find a combination of males and females in similar lanes.

"At the moment we have a particularly strong group of girls coming through particularly this year for the first time since Jenny Smatt, we are sending females to the Olympics. It's been all males."

Mr. Gordon has been president of BASA for more than three years but has been swimming regularly for more than two decades.

His father was a competitive diver. He said sport was great for keeping the mind alert at work.

"Swimming is tremendously good in that respect," he said. "It's probably one of the best forms of general fitness you can have."

It builds stamina and fitness and, while not helping people lose weight, certainly tones up the bulk, he said.

ASA operates a learn to swim programmes for kids and adults. "Swimming is actually on the curriculum of all the schools. We run the White's Island summer programme for the Department of Youth and Sport which takes around 350 kids.

"For those who can't swim, they learn to swim, for those who can, they develop their swimming technique as well as having fun and playing games.

"It's a swimming foundation course at the end of each week they have a little swimming competition and at the end of the season they have a White's Island swimming regatta which is good.

"Every year kids find something they enjoy doing and they progress into one of the swimming clubs ? it's part of the swimming pyramid.

"We have a pretty broad range of activities. There's about 350 kids in club competitive swimming. We have probably have as many again in the White's Island programme.

"We have a quite a broad-based programme. We have one full-time employee and a vast number of volunteers which is mostly parents.

"All of this obviously costs a lot of money but we are very fortunate in that we enjoy the support of the Ministry of Youth and Sport who assist us with a grant which goes towards running the White's Island programme which goes towards our pool administrator's salary with regard to running community programmes.

"The biggest challenge the sport faces is lack of facilities."

BASA got private funds to build its open door pool at Saltus 22 years ago which is used six-and-a-half days a week, from 6 a.m. to 9.30 p.m.

The association pays the school a peppercorn rent and funds a full-time pool administrator. School programmes are also run at Admiralty Park and on a beach in Somerset because there was no space at the pool.

"There's vast other areas untapped with regard to rehabilitation and people recovering from strokes but there are no facilities to help them," Mr. Gordon added.