Olympic swimmer Raekwon Noel capped off his inaugural Pan Am Aquatics Championships in Colombia with four gold medals and four national records, confirming his status as one of the region’s brightest emerging talents.
The meet is a major fixture on the aquatic calendar and brings together top swimmers from across the Americas. Noel, who made his Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 as a teenager and is currently on a scholarship at Indiana University in the United States, fourth and final gold came on Friday evening in the men’s 400m freestyle.
Clocking a time of 4:00.66, he not only topped the podium but also shattered another Guyanese national record in the process.
His medal haul includes victories in the 100m and 200m butterfly, as well as the 100m backstroke – each one accompanied by a new national benchmark.
In the 100m backstroke final, Noel posted a time of 56.78 seconds to edge out Colombia’s Gabriel Hernandez (57.04s) and Puerto Rico’s Suil Quinoes (59.27s).
He was similarly dominant in the 200m butterfly, touching in 2:02.53 ahead of Puerto Rico’s Andres Brooks (2:04.04) and Mexico’s Mark Van Eybergen (2:05.69).
Impressively, Noel had already twice broken the national record in that event earlier in the meet – first in the heats with 2:03.33 after lowering it from his previous best of 2:04.21.
His victory in the 100m butterfly was no less memorable, as he registered a time of 54.00 seconds – another Guyanese record – to claim top spot in a fiercely contested field.
Competing against swimmers from across the Americas, the 19-year-old demonstrated both composure and class well beyond his years.
Fellow Guyanese swimmer Shareefah Lewis also featured at the Championships. After an eighth-place finish in the 50m backstroke final, she returned to the pool on Friday for the girls’ 16–18 50m butterfly heats, placing fifth in her race with a time of 31.44 seconds.
Lewis is scheduled to continue her campaign in the 50m freestyle heats.
