Saipan Tribune

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Swimmers named January's best

Tsunami Saipan Swimming Center's Miku Tammy and Kensuke Kimura bagged the NMASA/TSL Foundation Student Athletes of the Month award for January after their record-breaking performance in separate competitions at the start of the 2013 season.

Tammy was selected for the coveted plum for resetting four CNMI age group record in the 9 to 10 division during the NMISF Swim Meet held early last month at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool.

The 10-year-old Tsunami Saipan swimmer first set a new age group mark in the 50m butterfly when she clocked in at 33.16 seconds, more than two seconds faster then her previous mark of 35.61 posted on May 26, 2012 during the 2012 Guam Championships in Hagatna.

Tammy's second record came in the 400m freestyle race where she logged 5:13.53. She shaved more than 30 seconds from her former mark (5:43.69) made on Dec. 3, 2011. The Tsunami Saipan bet had another record in the freestyle event (100m) after submitting 1:08.14, which is five seconds better than her previous record of 1:13.80 logged on May 25, 2012 in Guam

For her fourth and last age group mark, Tammy timed in at 2:49.27 in the 200m backstroke, about eight seconds faster than her old mark of 2:57.03, which was also posted on May 25, 2012.

Kimura missed setting records in the Northern Mariana Islands Swimming Federation-sanctioned tournament, but set marks in Sydney, Australia where he represented the CNMI in the 6th Australian Youth Olympic Festival held at the Aquatics Centre of the Sydney Olympic Park from Jan. 16 to 20.

Kimura submitted 2:19.12 in the 200m backstroke race in the Youth Olympic Festival to set a new CNMI national record and age group mark. His time in Sydney eclipsed the 10-year record of Saipan Swim Club's Seung Gin Lee, who logged 2:19.89 in the same event on July 25, 2003. Kimura's time also shattered the previous 15 to 16 age group record of 2:20.05, which he incidentally posted on Dec. 3, 2011.

Besides 200m freestyle, 100m backstroke, 100m breaststroke, 200m individual medley, and 50m freestyle and had respectable times in these events.

Less than a week after competing in Australia, Kimura joined the 8th SSC Annual Meek & Mighty Ocean Swim held in the waters off the Pacific Islands Club. He participated in the longest race of the event, the five-lap, 3,875m Mighty course, and bested seven other swimmers. Kimura timed in at 54:21 to prevail against Tsunami Saipan teammates Takumi Sugie (57:05) and Kaito Yanai (57:06) and Saipan Swim Club's Victoria Chentsova (59:41), Kento Akimaru (1:00:15), Jeff El-Hajj (1:00:16), Ed Ewing (1:00:17), and Carol Lynn Pierce (1:13:55).