Isaiah, Maria off to Doha today

National swimmers Isaiah Aleksenko and Maria Batallones will fly off to Doha, Qatar today as the CNMI’s representatives to the 2024 World Aquatics Championships.

Joining the 17-year-old Aleksenko and 15-year-old Batallones in Qatar’s capital from Feb. 11 to 18 are head coach Hiroyuki Kimura and Northern Marianas Swimming Federation representative Richard Sikkel.

Aleksenko and Batallones, both from Marianas High School, topped the selection process for the two slots available for the 2024 World Aquatics Championships. All CNMI swimmers that participated in the 2023 Pacific Games in Honiara were eligible and Aleksenko and Batallones earned the most FINA points (average of Top 3 events) with 700 points and 531 points, respectively.

For the record, Kean Pajarillaga was second among the men with 567 points followed by Kouki Watanabe and Taiyo Akimaru with 517 points and 506 points, respectively.

For the women, after Batallones was the 466 points of Shoko Litulumar and the 425 points of Piper Raho.

While the CNMI can send more than two swimmers in the 25m short course meet, the prohibitive cost of sending additional swimmers ($3,000 per swimmer) led NMSF to just send two. World Aquatics bankrolled Team NMI’s trip to Qatar.

Aleksenko will swim the 200m butterfly and 200m individual medley, while Batallones will concentrate in the 100m and 200m breaststroke in Doha.

Kimura said Aleksenko’s goal is to update the CNMI 200m butterfly record of 2:02.96 he established in Melbourne in December 2022.

“However, we have a more high-level target in the 200m butterfly. It is the qualifying time for the Junior Olympics in Japan and it’s 1:59.39.”

In the 200m IM, Kimura wants his ward to reset Rezne Wong’s CNMI national record of 2:05.84.

Batallones’ mission, meanwhile, is to break her own 100m breaststroke of 1:18.03, also set in Melbourne; and in the 200m breaststroke, to reset the Myana Welch’s record of 2:53.35.

“Our target is to make four national records in Doha!” said Kimura.

Aleksenko said he’s very excited to represent the CNMI anew in the 2024 World Aquatics Championships.

“I hope I can get FINA B time. This is a very important trip for me and I’m very grateful for my coach, Ms. Yuko [Kimura], my mom, and as well as God,” he said.

Batallones, for her part, said the Doha meet is another great opportunity for her to advance her career in swimming.

“I’m looking forward to great results like personal bests or even better, to update records. I’m really excited to compete because we’ve been training really hard. I also feel a little bit nervous, but I know that our coach and Ms. Yuko trained and prepared us well,” she said.