Three days into the Caribbean Island Swimming Championships and Bermuda have already picked up 14 medals and broken 12 national and one regional record.

The 24-member swim team, the largest ever to represent Bermuda abroad, have enjoyed an exceptional weekend in Kingston, Jamaica with Kiera Aitken the pick of the bunch, taking gold in the 100 metres backstroke in a Caribbean record time of 1:05.25.

Bermuda stand in sixth place in the medal table going into today?s fourth day, much to the delight of Assistant National Coach Ben Smith.

?The competition for CISC 2004 is exceptionally high this year with quite a number of Olympians here representing their countries,? he said.

?As an example in the 100 metres butterfly final, Michael O?Connor actually broke the existing CISC record behind five other record breakers ? that is unheard of at this level.

?Our kids are trained, rested and pumped.?

Steve Thomson, head of delegation for the Bermuda team, added: ?To put things into perspective, Jamaica is one of the 15 countries competing and is over 50 times the size of Bermuda in population. You can be sure that we were all as proud as could be when Kiera Aitken, Bermuda?s Olympic swimmer for Athens, snatched the gold and broke the CISC record in the 100 metres backstroke at the same time.

?Our flag was raised, our anthem played and we were all beaming from ear to ear.?

The medal haul began on Friday night with Michael O?Connor taking second place in the 50 metres butterfly final and university team-mate Graham Smith also taking silver ? in national record time of 4:49.15 ? in the 400 metres individual medley.

In the men?s 100 metres freestyle, Ronald Cowen, who still hopes to qualify for the Olympics at this meet, took the bronze medal in a time of 52.83, while Ashley Aitken swam a superb race in the women?s 50 metres butterfly, improving on her own national record by 1.82 seconds and narrowly missing out on the bronze medal.

Bermuda?s medal haul for the evening was rounded out with another bronze in the men?s 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay with the quartet of Cowen, Smith, Roy-Allan Burch and Scott Simmons finishing in a time of 3:39.18.

In the 11 and 12-year age group, Rebecca Sharpe took the bronze medal in the 100 metres backstroke in 1:14.82.

Chris Garcelon finish fifth in the 200 metres individual medley but smashed the age group record by 7.85 seconds in the process.

On Satuday, Cowen claimed the silver in his speciality, the 200 metres freestyle with a fine swim of 1:56.00, falling short, however, of meeting the Olympic qualification time of 1:55.08.

Cowen then came back to take another silver in the 100 metres backstroke and broke his own national record by 0.77 seconds.

Ashley Aitken was the next Bermuda swimmer to medal, taking bronze in the 100 metres butterfly with an excellent swim of 1:05.34 and establishing yet another national record in the process.

Among the younger swimmers ? in the 11 and 12-year age group ? Catriona Brewin and Garcelon (both 200 metres breaststroke) took bronze in age group record times.

Anastasia Lau then took silver in the 15-17 age group, also in the 200 metres breaststroke, before Graham Smith took bronze in the same event.

The final medal of the night went to the girls? 11 and 12 freestyle relay team of Brewin, Rebecca Sharpe, Kaitlyn Miller and Nicole Yearwood who took bronze with an excellent combined swim of 4:28.41, which also established an age group record.