LTBs galore posted by SSC swimmers

While the 2008 Guam Swimming Championships last weekend was sort of a coming out party for Kai Staal, the new Golden Boy of local swimming was not the only CNMI swimmer that impressed in the Hagatna Pool.

In fact, the rest of the eight swimmers that SSC head coach Michael Stewart brought to Guam for the meet medaled in the competition, but more importantly for Stewart the entire team posted an amazing 79 percent improvement on lifetime bests in the events they swam in.

For instance, Stewart said Abigail Martinsen slashed an impressive 24 seconds off her 400m freestyle LTB and lapped off another nine seconds from her best in the 200m freestyle.

Stewart said that’s not bad for someone who only started swimming two years ago

Victoria “Torii” Chentsova also had a quantum leap in the 400m freestyle, dropping 23 seconds, as well as a nine-second improvement in the 200m freestyle.

Stewart said Grace Kimball also came so close to setting a new CNMI in the 100m freestyle, dropping almost three seconds to 1:08, which was just a second from the record currently held by Maystar Welch.

She was also in range of the 400m, 800m, and 1,500 freestyle records and it is Stewart’s hope that Kimball would eventually shatter those marks before she turns 13 years old.

Lester Lapuz, meanwhile, followed up her victory in last month’s 6th Annual Escape from Managaha Island with splendid performances in the 400m, 800m, and 1,500m freestyle where he dropped 11.01, 1:47, and 22 seconds, respectively.

Michael Moran, meanwhile, dropped eight seconds in the 400m freestyle to 5:23 as well as cut 3.1 and 1.8 seconds off his best times in the 50m and 100m breaststroke.

Stewart said Junior Pamaran had a perfect meet after the team’s oldest member dropped times in all his events—the biggest of which was a two-second improvement in the 200m freestyle.

Blair Nicholls also improved his times in two events. He dropped 1.2 seconds in the 50m backstroke and then cut by two seconds his best time in his specialty, the 50m freestyle.

Stewart added that Blair also led off SSC’s silver medal-winning 200m freestyle relay team with an unofficial time of 26.75 seconds.

Ten-year-old Andrew Kimball, meanwhile, shrugged off illness that forced him out of all events on Friday to come back Saturday to drop five seconds in the 400m freestyle and two seconds in the 200m freestyle.

Stewart said in addition to the new age group record in the 50m breaststroke (35.97), Staal also dropped nine seconds off his lifetime best in the 200m freestyle (2:11.95).

Staal’s 100m freestyle of 58.9 was also a time drop of more than three seconds from his best. He also posted a five-second drop in the 100m breaststroke to 1:21 and improved by two seconds his 50m butterfly (31.93).

In all, SSC swimmers that had a 100 percent LTB rating during the 2008 Guam Swimming Championships were Staal (7-for-7), Martinsen (6-for-6), and Chentsova and Pamaran (5-for-5).

“More important than the medals is the improvement again of all these young competitors. I have always strived to have my teams swim at least a 70 percent Life Time Best swims during a championship meet. We came away with a 79 percent LTB performance—10 percentage points higher than the second most improved team, Guam Typhoons with 69 percent LTBs. Most teams were in the low 60s or high 50 percentile range,” said Stewart.