Stewart sees brighter future for swimmers

CNMI coach Michael Stewart guided his swimmers to an impressive performance in the 2005 Palau South Pacific Mini Games, and still looks for brighter days ahead, citing that the NMI team to the next SPG will be much stronger.

“We don’t lose a soul,” he said. “Everybody is young and that’s the beauty of this thing. Everybody is about 13 to 16 years of age and we got another two years with them. David [Palacios] is the oldest but he may train for it too. That’s really exciting and two years from now, our SPG team will be much stronger.”

The swimmers ended up with 19 of the 21 CNMI medals. The other two came from table tennis team competition and wrestler Joe Ocampo.

“It was much so better than expected,” Stewart said of the performance. “The kids swam great top to bottom. Not one of them swam below expectations…all swam above expectations, which is pretty rare because it was my first championship season with them and their first championship season with me, so it’s a learning process.”

Stewart said he had heard of powerhouse New Caledonia, and was not too optimistic that the team would push the French Colony to the limit, but was satisfied with how the young swimmers rose to the challenge.

“It wasn’t what I expected but I didn’t think we would swim as fast as we did,” he said. “New Caledonia…I’d heard about how quick and fast they are and thought ‘we’re just not that good,’ but the kids rose to that level. We split them up…they didn’t dominate like they dominated us in the past because they had much more depth. [New Caledonia] kids have been training like our kids have been training since last year for five or six years, so two years from now, they’ll get another big surprise. They were surprised that we were this fast this year. I was talking to the coach and he was like ‘wow, you guys got really good really fast.’”

The adjustment to coach Stewart began the minute he took over.

“When I first got here, they weren’t able to do the long training that I do, and finally towards the middle of the summer, they were able to get up to 65,000 meters a week and it takes a long time to adapt to get to that…like a full year,” he said. “Maybe by next May, we can do it for eight to 10 weeks and be that much stronger, and the following year build on that again as well as bring in the younger kids we have coming up.”

He also explained that weeks before making their journey, the team put in their heart that they were one force.

“Team chemistry is unbelievable,” he said. “They’re such a core. There’s no in-fighting and everybody supports everybody else. We call it a one-unit deal. Everybody is one unit and we do a set everyday that everybody has to go together and stays together and we call it one unit. We don’t go anywhere without each other we support each other and with that support they know they got their strength.”

Stewart also commended the members for “doing what they could to perform the best they could.

“They are a very light- hearted group but they work very hard and they’re a true team. They were focused. I told them we’re here for a six-day period swim meet representing the CNMI and they’ve been totally focused in what they had to do. Lights out when they need to, not going anywhere they’re not supposed to, off their feet when their resting between prelims and finals, eating right…they did absolutely everything they could to do the best they can.”

Meanwhile, NMI chef de mission Michael White also took time to commend the team for their efforts.

“Their performance was absolutely fabulous, and so much better than expected,” he said. I wish swimming could continue so we could win some more medals.”

The team is made up of Nina Mosley, Amanda Johnson, Nicole Calvo, Minerva Cabrera, Melissa Coleman, Rezne Wong, Juan and Michael Camacho, and Palacios.