Coaches on time trial: Benchmark has been set

Micheal Miller of Saipan Swim Club, Kouki Watanabe of Tsunami Saipan Swimming Center, and  Moshe Sikkel of SSC prepare to swim the 100-yard breaststroke during last week’s mutual time trials at  the Pacific Islands Club Saipan lap pool. (MARK RABAGO)

The coaches of Tsunami Saipan Swimming Center and Saipan Swim Club agree that the first mutual time trial held last week between the two clubs has set a benchmark for their swimmers when they compete in future events.

“The practice itself can be done in the ocean or at the resort pool. However, it is difficult for children to stay motivated without the opportunity to time their swimming time at the swim meet,” said Tsunami Saipan head coach Hiroyuki Kimura.

He added that like any other sport, practice is boring and painful and that’s why a time trial is always a welcome respite to the monotony. “If practice was easy and fun, athletes or teams wouldn’t evolve.”

Kimura said a time trial is like a heightened version of the usual swimming practice and that’s what he cherished finally conducting a mutual time trial with SSC.

“In swimming, it becomes fun for children when the time gets faster. But for that, you need to do  practice. And in order to do the practice with high motivation, it is necessary to have a target constantly. The target should be a swim meet. Unfortunately, there is no competition pool on the island where a meet can be held. I hope that we can take the style of time trial this time and continue to set target/goal for children in the future.”

For top performers in the mutual meet, Kimura named Maria Guerrero and Yutaro Kitagawa in the 10-and-under division and Sari Barman, Maria Batallones, Julia Jinang, and Isaiah Aleksenko in the 11-and-over category.

For SSC head coach Richard Sikkel, the mutual meet allowed his swimmers to set a benchmark to improve upon.

“For the older swimmers it is pretty evident that we are at a huge disadvantage by not having regular access to a pool. We had one pool practice before the trials. Their conditioning is great, but the confidence in their turns, their starts, etc. have tremendous room for improvement. We had several run-ins with the walls the last two days,” he said.

Fortunately, Sikkel said with pool time he expects their times to improve by leaps and bounds, shaving off seconds instead of hundreds of seconds.

While SSC’s more experienced swimmers struggled in the 25-yard pool at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan in San Antonio, the younger swimmers showed spunk, according to the SSC mentor.

“I was very impressed with our younger (10-and-under) swimmers who fought the first time trial jitters and swam good times considering that for most it was their first time.”

Lastly, he thanked Kimura and Tsunami Saipan for taking the lead in organizing the first-ever mutual time trial between the two clubs.

“Coach Hiro and the volunteers did a great job organizing the trials and it was great to see such a large number of swimmers trying to set or raise their own bar.”