Arising from a government directive, The Bahamas will not be defending their Carifta Swimming title in Barbados in April.

They are also withdrawing from hosting the CCCAN championships set for June.

President of The Bahamas Aquatics Federation Algernon Cargill confirmed his federation’s stance on Thursday.

“The Bahamas Aquatics Federation will not be participating in the 2020 Carifta Aquatics Championships. We have been advised by the Government of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, that until further notice, all international travel by national teams have been banned or discouraged. As a result, we will not be able to defend our Carifta Championship that we won last year for the third consecutive year,” said Cargill who also revealed that they will not even be sending their water polo team to the championships set for April 7-9 at the Barbados Aquatics Centre in Bridgetown.

“Our swimmers are very sad about this because they were all excited. The team has been picked. We prepared to travel to Barbados but out of an abundance of caution, the government of the Bahamas has advised us that we will not be able to travel.”

Cargill said that directive also means that the country will not host the CCCAN Swimming Championships from June 24-July 3.

“We have also been advised that we will also be unable to host CCCAN this year, simply out of an abundance of caution and possibly not participating,” Cargill said.

“These are very challenging times. We regret these decisions but it is outside of the control of the Bahamas, everyone’s control, and despite the disappointment, we take wisdom in knowing that the decision made is in the best interests of everyone because even though there are no known cases of the virus in the Bahamas, we do know that the virus is travelling and given its global pandemic state, it will probably come to the Bahamas and we don’t want to subject ourselves to exposure.”