SAVANETA, Aruba (CMC):

Jamaica collected only one win through Breanna Roman (1:03.05) in the 11-12 girls' 100 metres freestyle as The Bahamians continued to grab the biggest slices of records as the 2008 CARIFTA Swimming Championship concluded day three competition Saturday.

However, the French Antilles maintained their stout title defence with seven victories.

The outstanding Bahamian Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, already a qualilfier for the Beijing Olympics, and her teammate McKayla Lightbourne featured in three of the four records Saturday night at the Piscina Olimpico Pool.

Vanderpool-Wallace shattered the 12-year-old record that Barbadian Olympic finalist Leah Martindale had in the Girls' 15-17 age-group 100-metre freestyle when she clocked a superb 56.77 seconds for the gold medal.

The Bahamas team captain chopped more than a tenth of a second off Martindale's 1996 mark of 57.79 seconds as she splashed to an authoritative win over Ariel Weech (59.15) in a Bahamian sweep of the top two positions.

Her record triumph was not surprising as she had entered the meet with a personal best - of 56.67 - that was already under Martindale's mark.

Meet-best

Lightbourne also erased a meet-best of another Olympian when she clocked two minutes 20.09 seconds to capture the 15-17 Girls' 200 individual medley (IM), slicing more five seconds off the 2006 mark of 2:25.25 by Jamaican Alia Atkinson.

Lightbourne's teammate Alicia Lighbourne took the silver medal in 2:27.40. The two Lightbourne's are unrelated.

Vanderpool-Wallace and Lightbourne, already with a combined total of five individual records this weekend, added another Bahamian relay record to their log with victory in the girls' 15-17 age-group 800-metre freestyle relay.

Joined by Alicia Lightbourne and Jenna Chaplin, they crushed their rivals and dipped well below their own 2007 record of 9:01.67, stopping the clock at a superb 8:52.38.

The other record to fall went to Suriname's Evita Leter, landing the 11-12 Girls' 50m breaststroke in 36.85 seconds.

The French Antilles had a 25 per cent (winning) strike rate in the 28 finals contested Saturday night and their gold medals included lopsided wins in the 13-14 and 15-17 boys' 800-metre freestyle relays.

The French unit took the 13-14 event in 8:19.50 over the Netherlands Antilles (8:43.77) and the 15-17 gold in 8:14.22 ahead of Trinidad and Tobago (8:20.30).

Seventeen-time champions Trinidad and Tobago, taking aim at their first CARIFTA Swimming championship title in four years, followed up their seven-gold effort back-to-back nights Thursday and Friday, with five more victories.

T&T victories

Their 11-12 age group star Keegan Boisson won individual medley and freestyle events for two of T&T's victories. Boisson captured the 100-free in 58.96 to defeat his team mate Joshua Romany (1:00.36), and he scored in the 200-metre IM in 2:32.17 to boost his overall individual gold medal tally so far at the meet to five. He had already won the 50 backstroke, and the 50 and 100 butterfly events.

Other former team champions Barbados and Jamaica shared four wins.

The Barbadians enjoyed their best night so far with three gold medals, through Zabrina Holder (2:39.98) in the 11-12 girls' 200 IM, Amara Gibbs (2:45.09) in the 11-12 girls' 200 butterfly, and the 13-14 girls' 800 freestyle relay. They used the quartet of Janay Cumberbatch, Chelsea Gellineau, Lee Ann Rose and Lani Cabrera to win in 9:07.90.