Belizean Swimmer Davia Richardson Sets Personal Best at Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland

Belizean swimmer Davia Richardson has opened her campaign at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, with a new personal-best performance in the Women’s 50-metre Butterfly. Richardson, who turned eighteen last week, finished second in her preliminary heat this morning, touching the wall in 28.86 seconds. The time was eight-hundredths of a second faster than her previous long-course best of 28.94 seconds, recorded in Jamaica in December 2023.  Her performance placed her thirtieth overall among the competitors. While the result was not fast enough to advance her to the semi-finals, it marked a positive start for the young Belizean against swimmers from some of the Commonwealth’s leading aquatic nations.  The Belize Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association congratulated Richardson, describing the swim as a fantastic start to the Games and encouraging her to continue making Belize proud.  Richardson is already one of Belize’s most accomplished young swimmers. At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, she won her heat of the Women’s 100-metre Butterfly in a then-personal-best time of one minute, 4.29 seconds. She also enjoyed an impressive showing at the 2025 ASATT Invitational Age Group Championships in Trinidad and Tobago, where she collected four gold medals, two silver and one bronze to emerge as the overall Girls’ 15-and-over champion.  Richardson is scheduled to return to the pool for the Women’s 100-metre Freestyle and 100-metre Butterfly events.  The swimming competition is being held at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre. The Glasgow Games, which officially opened yesterday, bring together more than three thousand athletes from seventy-four Commonwealth nations and territories competing across ten sports and six Para sports.