Noel storms to 3rd CAC Gold with record-breaking 200m freestyle swim

Raekwon Noel captured his third gold medal of the centennial Central American and Caribbean Games after producing a record-breaking performance in the men’s 200-metre freestyle final in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
The Guyanese swimmer touched the wall in one minute, 47.08 seconds, erasing the previous Games record of 1:47.19 established by Mexico’s Jorge Iga in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 2018.
Noel’s decision to withdraw from Friday’s men’s 100m backstroke proved beneficial after consecutive late nights caused by anti-doping testing procedures. The additional recovery helped him return strongly and deliver another historic performance for Guyana.

Iga secured the silver medal in 1:47.95, finishing 0.87 seconds behind Noel, while Trinidad and Tobago’s Nikoli Blackman claimed bronze in 1:49.41.
Mexico’s Daniel Saborio placed fourth in 1:49.63, ahead of Venezuela’s Adanuriel Rosal, who clocked 1:51.31. Colombia’s Juan Manuel Morales finished sixth in 1:51.63, Honduras’ Gabriel Martinez was seventh in 1:51.87, Dominican Republic swimmer Mauricio Jose Arias placed eighth in 1:53.43, and Venezuela’s Winston Rodriguez was ninth in 1:54.00.
Earlier, Noel comfortably won his preliminary heat in 1:52.43. Rosal was second in 1:54.36, while Costa Rica’s Alberto Vega finished third in 1:55.43.
Christian Serafeim of Honduras placed fourth in 1:57.40, followed by Haiti’s Raphael Grand-Pierre in 1:57.91, Kaeden Gleason of the United States Virgin Islands in 1:59.25, and Dominica’s Seif Hesham Elshekh in 2:08.20.
The victory followed Noel’s gold-medal performances in the men’s 200m individual medley and 200m butterfly.
He won the individual medley in 1:59.35, breaking the two-minute barrier and establishing new national and CAC Games records. Noel then clocked 1:56.82 in the butterfly to better the previous Games record of 1:57.03.
Meanwhile, Guyanese swimmers Ariel Rodrigues and Shareefah Lewis competed in Heat One of the women’s 50m butterfly but did not advance.
Rodrigues finished third in 31.40 seconds, while Lewis was one-hundredth of a second behind in fourth place with 31.41.
Sint Maarten’s Aday Bourne won the heat in 30.95, narrowly ahead of Haiti’s Mayah Chouloute, who recorded 30.99. Aiyana Bourne of Sint Maarten placed fifth in 34.25.