Black Heritage Swim Meet

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on May 27, 2007 1:58 PM

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The Goldsboro Family YMCA is hosting the Fifth National Black Heritage Championship Swim Meet this weekend.

Also sponsoring the competition is the North Carolina Aquablazers Swim Team and North Carolina Swimming.

The Aquablazers, made up of minority swimmers from North Carolina, South Carolina, California and Delaware and Illinois, was formed by a small group of parents whose children also swam year-round for different swimming teams across the United States.

Lisa Webb of Garner, the team's vice president and assistant coach, said the swimmers had excelled in the sport on their year-round teams, and the parents wanted to expose them to other minority swim meets at the national level.

Also, she said, the parents wanted to expose the sport of swimming to other minority children.

Mrs. Webb said organizers expected 28 teams consisting of more than 600 swimmers to participate. The teams are coming from California, Washington, D.C., Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

She said the hope is that the swim meets will inspire minority children to learn how to swim and to enjoy swimming competitively.

"The parents also hope that, as their children continue to excel in the sport, they won't hesitate to dream about the possibility of swimming on a national scale through their state and regional championships or even the Olympics," she said.

Today, Maritza Correia, the first black swimmer on the U.S. Olympic Team and a silver medalist in the 2004 Olympics; and Cullen Jones, part of the winning 400 freestyle relay team at the FINA 2007 World Championships, will be participating in an exhibition swim event.