At 14 years old Emily MacDonald is already blazing the trail, and one cannot help but have high expectations for her to get even better with time.

MacDonald has, over the year, been one of Jamaica’s most consistent swimmers in any age group, and that was demonstrated in an exceptional manner at the recently concluded 33rd staging of the Carifta Swimming Championships.

Of the 41 medals tallied by Jamaica’s sensational 36-member team, MacDonald accounted for eight, seven of which were gold — four individual and three relays — complemented by one bronze and four meet records.

The fact that the four-day championship was hosted here in Kingston at National Aquatic Centre added impetus to MacDonald’s charge, as she possesses a stubborn determination and an unwavering will to swim at her best at all times.

The former Campion College student, who made the move to The Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida, was among a number of overseas-based swimmers who returned home eager to showcase some of what they have learnt.

And, as expected, the results were startling in more ways than one for some members within the aquatic circle who watched the spectacle.

MacDonald took centre stage with her record-breaking exploits in the girls’ 13-14 200-metre freestyle, clocking 2:08.70 minutes to lower the previous mark of 2:09.51 minutes set by Kimberlee John Williams in 2009.

She won the girls’ 13-14 100-metre freestyle in a record 57.99 seconds, bettering the previous mark of 58.22 seconds set by Ali Jackson last year and followed up with victory in the girls’ 13-14 50m freestyle which she won in a record 26.76 seconds.

She lowered the previous time of 26.81 seconds set by Bermuda’s Madelyn Moore in 2014.

MacDonald then joined forces with teammates Simone Vale, Sabrina Lyn and Zaneta Alvaranga to clock 4:33.81 minutes and win the girls’ 13-14 400m medley relay. In the process they lowered the previous meet record of 4:36.43 minutes set last year by Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the previous national record of 4:46.29 set in 2009.

“I feel really good. I think the last couple of months I have done a lot of training and a lot of work with my techniques so I have been expecting to go faster, and my performances definitely met and exceeded my expectation. So I am really happy, and hearing my anthem as I stand atop the podium is always an honour,” MacDonald told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

She continued: “Representing Jamaica at home was already enough excitement that I needed to do well. So when I was preparing for the 100m butterfly I felt really good and I knew that if I just relaxed in the first 50m I could finish strong and maintain it to finish in front.

“In the relays, because I didn’t get enough time to warm down and the medal presentations were right after, I was kind of worried that I wasn’t going to do a good enough time to get the gold that I promised my team. But I went in the race and did a best time which I wasn’t expecting.”

MacDonald knows all too well that it is never an easy feat to go faster as a swimmer, but she has been making a big splash of her times of late as her sweet vein of form continued.

“I have set some goals and have worked hard towards them and they have now materialised, as I went into the 200m free aiming for 2:10 and I got 2:08 and the 50 and 100m free I did 26secs and 57secs.

“It is always a great feeling to drop time because it means that the work that I put in training is coming out in the pool when I race. So I am hoping to keep improving on my times and keep getting better on the different strokes,” said MacDonald.

When asked to compare the level of training at her current institution with that in Jamaica, MacDonald pointed out that the difference between the short course and long course has aided her in different ways.

“They train a lot more here than they do abroad, so my times in short course (in Florida) would translate to my times in long course metres (in Jamaica), because they tapered me as more of a distance swimmer and I am more of a sprinter.

“The short course has assisted in me making my turns sharper in long course competition and my underwater is also a bit faster. But the distance training (in Jamaica) aided in my endurance so that enabled me to go out on a fast time and then come back within two seconds of that time — so that is really good,” she noted.

Looking ahead, MacDonald explained that it is now back to the drawing board as she sets her sights on an even more impressive feat when she graces the pool for the CCCAN in Aruba in July, and by extension the Youth Olympics in Argentina later this year.

“I am looking forward to that and I want to make sure that I am getting close to my best times in training, so that for CCCAN I can get even greater times which would qualify me for Youth Olympics.

“So I am just going to have to train a lot harder than I have in the past to maintain and later surpass the level of speed and fitness I am at now. There is always room for error and no one is perfect, but I am going to try to be as close to perfect as I can be in my races going forward,” the confident MacDonald ended.