Zaneta “Mariposa” Alvaranga Soars To Higher Heights

Courtesy of Shayne Fairman, Freelance Sports Writer

MARIPOSA is the Spanish word for Butterfly and at the just concluded 2017 Neville Alexander Memorial Swim Meet in Kingston, Jamaica, national age group standout Zaneta Alvaranga set new 11-12 age group marks in the 50 metre butterfly event. Alvaranga ended the meet with three (3) individual records and anchored the Y Speedos relay quartet to a meet record to etch her name four (4) times in the record books.

The meet which ran from May 26 to 28, 2017 at the National Aquatic Centre in Kingston, Jamaica offered the last opportunity to local based swimmers to qualify for the Central American and Caribbean Amateur Swimming Confederation Swimming Championships (CCCAN) to be held in Trinidad and Tobago from June 28 to July 2, 2017.

Alvaranga, who competes for the Y Speedos Swim Club in Jamaica had set the meet record last year with a time of 30.63. She annihilated that record and stomped her class on the field when she touched the wall in a new meet and national record of 28.95. The time has inched Alvaranga further away from USA’s Hannah Weisman who sits a top of the Top 10 rankings with 29.25 seconds.

One analysis stated “Alvaranga, who won Gold in the event at the 2017 CARIFTA Games with a meet record 29.05, is the first Jamaican 11-12 girl under the 29 second barrier. She is already faster than the 13-14 national age group mark of 29.57 by Kendese Nangle and is closing in on the 15-17 national age group record of 28.87 by Olympian Alia Atkinson. Her record makes her the fastest 11-12 girl ever in the English speaking Caribbean region and the only one under 29 seconds for the event. She is also almost a second faster than the CCCAN record of 29.85 set Venezuelan Ángela Ciccenia in 2007. Alvaranga’s winning time would have won her the Silver medal in the boy’s race at the 2015 CCCAN Championships held in Barbados”. – Tony Morrison

Alvaranga’s next record came on day two in the 100m version of the stroke with her stopping the clock at 1:07.83 battering the old record 1:11.65 set in 2007 by Raynae Hall. This 1:07.83 makes Alvaranga the only 11 – 12 female to have gone under 1:08.00 more than once in her stalk of the national age group record of 1:07.22 set by Sabrina Lyn at the 2017 CARIFTA Championships.

Alvarangaa then returned on the final day to polish up her one record a day record exploits with a blistering 27.68 seconds in the 50m Freestyle, leaving the competition in the wake of her bubbles created by her powerful kick in route to victory.  The old meet record of 28.09 was set by Emily MacDonald last year.

In the penultimate female event of the meet, Alvaranga with her lethal underwater swim dove off on the anchor leg in second place some 1.5 meters behind but surfaced at the 14 meter mark ahead to give her YSpeedos team (Paig’e Lewis, Callier Maxwell, Jadean Dixon, Zaneta Alvaranga) the gold and meet record in 2:03.82 lowering the old mark of 2:04.24.

Alvaranga is now preparing for the CCCAN Championships in Couva, Trinidad.