When Jacky Beckford Henriques scans the water and stands during an age-group meet she considers it lucky if there are five Black swimmers among the 400 or 500 competitors.

“I’ll be very frank,” said the Jamaican-born Beckford Henriques, head coach of the University of Waterloo swim team. “In my 12 years here, that number has not changed.”

Karin Browne, an assistant coach for the Waterloo Varsity swim team, remembers what it was like to be the only Black person in the water during training sessions.

“You’re a lot more self-conscious,” said Browne, who was born in Costa Rica and represented Antigua and Barbuda at the London 2012 Summer Olympics. “You do end up having to shut it out because you don’t really have a choice.

“I will be honest. Sometimes it is hard to connect with others because there isn’t that similarity that you connect with, especially if you are from a developing country whereas a lot of other people are from North American or Europe.”

Beckford Henriques and Browne are trying to break down the obstacles and increase the number of Black people participating at all levels of swimming in Canada.

Economics and culture are barriers preventing some Black people from swimming, said Beckford Henriques, who coached the Jamaican Olympic team at the 2000, 20004 and 2008 Games.

“In a lot of the developing countries they don’t have the facilities and within the developed countries, the cost of swimming for much of the Black population, they’re unable to afford it,” she said. “Then you have tradition. We can go back as far as slavery and not swimming, that has also influenced it.”

At the 2024 Paris Olympics Toronto’s Josh Liendo became the first Black Canadian to win an Olympic medal when he took silver in the 100-metre butterfly.

At those same Games, Greg Arkhurst, head coach of Montreal’s CAMO club, became the first Black coach named to a Swimming Canada Olympic team staff. Arkhurst has been named Swimming Canada’s Olympic program coach of the year the last two years.

Browne said having more Black coaches would make swimming “more inviting.” To have more Black coaches, you need more Black swimmers at the grassroots level.

“Coaches on the deck need to be more welcoming and not expecting that the reaction is going to be the same across the board,” said Browne.

“They need to make the swimmers that are there feel good about continuing and not turn them off. I will be honest, there are times when you have coaches that will not pay attention. They will not give the feedback that they may give somebody else. Like any sport, if you as an athlete don’t feel as though you’re getting what you should be hoping to get from your coach, why continue this sport?”

Both Browne and Beckford Henriques are involved in programs that encourage and support Black swimmers.

At Waterloo, Browne has started Black Folx Swim, a Learn-to-Swim program focusing on encouraging the Black community to gain swimming skills necessary to feel more comfortable in the water.

“My aim when I did this program was to ensure that they show up, they feel good and they feel welcome in a space where traditionally they have not be able too,” she said.

“If you speak to a lot of persons, they (say) my family doesn’t want me to learn to swim because they had a bad history or it was never a welcoming space.”

Encouraging more Black swimmers develops more Black lifeguards, instructors, assistant coaches and coaches.

“It’s going to take a bit, but when you start seeing more persons in that space, I think we are able to actually start bringing more swimmers up the ranks,” Browne said.

Beckford Henriques is involved in the Black Swimmers Alliance, a group of eight Black families with swimmers in different clubs in the Greater Toronto Area.

“They have actually got together to support each other,” said Beckford Henriques. “It’s very difficult for them because there (might be) one kid in a club.”

Beckford Henriques has helped develop The Alliance, an anti-racism group at the University of Waterloo which works to educate the community on equity, diversity, and inclusion.

She also is a member of the Swim Ontario committee focusing on equity, diversity, and inclusion. With Ontario University Athletics she serves on the Black, Biracial, and Indigenous committee of the working to create inclusion and eliminate racism across university sport across the province.

Beckford Henriques is the daughter of a white English mother and a Black Jamaican father. She attended the University of Sussex to study physical education as well as earn her teaching accreditation. She took Recreational Management at the University of Michigan and became a physical education teacher in Jamaica before coming to Canada in 2014.

She was an assistant coach at McMaster University for three years, where she credits head coach Andrew Cole for making her feel welcome, then took over as head coach at Waterloo in 2017.

Beckford Henriques coached the Jamaican National team from 1984 to 2016. Besides the three Olympics she also coached the team at World championships, Pan Am and Commonwealth Games.

Browne spent seven years on the Antigua and Barbuda national team. She also spent 10 years as a swim instructor and coach.

Browne moved to Canada about five years ago and attended the University of Waterloo in the Recreation of Leisure Studies program, with research interests in sport for development and community sport and recreation in minority communities. She was named an assistant coach with the swim team in 2022.

Both women believe they can make a difference when it comes to encouraging more Black swimmers in Canada.

“Of course we have to be hopeful,” said Beckford-Henriques. “I am a strong believer to help with change, if we all do one thing, that would be a lot of things getting done.”

For Browne, her being on the pool deck sends a message.

“I think showing up and knowing how I present, regardless of what my skin colour is,” she said. “That’s what keeps me going. The hope that will help change a person’s mind, or change the way they look at the world, to understand that we are deserving as everybody else.”

The Canadian swimming community mourns the loss of Flip Filippelli