Roy-Allan Burch came within touching distance of securing a place at the Rio Olympics, and missed.

The Bermuda swimmer grabbed bronze in the 50 metre free final at the Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships, clocking a time of 22.79sec.

While enough to meet the Olympic B standard for qualifying, it was just outside the A standard of 22.27 that the Bermuda Olympic Association insisted he needed to hit to even be considered for the squad.

Still Ben Smith, the Bermuda national coach, seemed to suggest yesterday that the door had not closed on Burch, claiming that as he had made the B time he was still in with a chance of being selected.

However, for Burch to secure a place that would require the BOA to throw Julian Fletcher off the squad they named on June 23, something that seems extremely unlikely.

Lisa Blackburn, who was also trying to qualify for Rio in the 100 breaststroke, fell well short of the mark claiming bronze in her final in 1:13:60, outside of the 1:10:22 B standard for that event. Rebecca Heyliger will take the one female spot open to Bermuda.

“We now have three swimmers with the B selection time and will have to wait for the selection process to be completed,” Smith said.

“The four athletes have done Bermuda proud with their efforts towards making the time for Rio. It is never easy to make cuts between team-mates [and] friends and great competitors for your country. I am proud to have worked with all of them up to this deadline and now we will wait to see the final outcome.”

While Burch was bidding to qualify for Rio, his Bermuda team-mates were busy putting together the island’s best performance at the championships.

In all the 12-strong squad won 34 medals, with seven golds, 11 silver and 16 bronze in the Bahamas, and wracked up 19 records.

Emma Harvey accounted for the most impressive of these, setting championship records in two events, while claiming four gold medals. The other three golds went to Madelyn Moore, Logan Watson-Brown and Tyler Mazurek.

“This is the best result we have had for an competition in the region,” Smith said.

“The young athletes and our senior athletes combined to have an amazing result that has really solidified Bermuda’s position in our region.”