{"id":285775,"date":"2018-10-02T06:06:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T20:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=285775"},"modified":"2018-10-02T06:06:46","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T20:06:46","slug":"swimmers-show-resiliency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/swimmers-show-resiliency\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimmers show resiliency"},"content":{"rendered":"
Saipan Swim Club coach Jacoby Winkfield watches swimmers do practice laps in the waters off Civic Center in Susupe during a training session yesterday. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The closure of the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool will not stop Saipan Swim Club members from training and improving their skills.<\/p>\n

After holding their last practice at the 50-meter pool in Marpi last Friday, SSC started working on their strokes in the open waters off Civic Center in Susupe yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids are resilient. They know they have to continue swimming and move forward and let the adults resolve the problems with the pool. It\u2019s not ideal (practicing in the ocean), but ocean swim has a lot on benefits, like improving endurance and cardio. Plus, open water is getting a big following in the world, so our swimmers can take a break from the pool and improve their ocean swim skills,\u201d SSC coach Jacoby Winkfield told Saipan Tribune yesterday during a break in their first open water swim session.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no excuse to stop swimming and the kids know that. We are surrounded with water and we just have to make use of what\u2019s available for now. We can\u2019t stop because we might lose momentum and eventually swimmers will stop coming and the program will suffer,\u201d the SSC coach added.<\/p>\n

Winkfield said it will be business as usual for SSC, as the club will hold its regular practices from Monday to Friday, beginning at 4pm, while swim lessons will still be offered every Tuesday and Thursday. Despite keeping their training schedule and moving to a new venue, the SSC coach hopes that the issue on the pool will be settled, soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CNMI will be sending four swimmers to the World Championships in China in December. It is a short course tournament, so turns, start, and speed are crucial and we need a pool to work on those things,\u201d Winkfield said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will look for pools in the hotel and hopefully they will allow us to use the facility. It\u2019s logistically hard using the pools at hotels because of the liability issues and hotels have guests to attend to, but we really need some pool time in December,\u201d added Winkfield.<\/p>\n

For now, the SSC official is just proud that their swimmers are not giving up and remain positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids are out here, doing the same things they are doing in the pool before. It\u2019s us the adults and leaders who need to figure out things to help our kids become successful. We can\u2019t be the ones holding them back from doing things they are good at. I understand that the situation is complicated, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will come up with the solution soon,\u201d Winkfield.<\/p>\n

Kan Pacific\u2019s extension of lease agreement with the government expired last Sunday, leaving the Marpi pool and other facilities under the company\u2019s care closed. Last week, the Commonwealth Lottery Commission approved Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC\u2019s request to take over the facilities under Kan Pacific\u2019s management, including the Olympic-sized pool. However, as of yesterday afternoon, Winkfield said they haven\u2019t heard anything about the pool from the concerned parties. <\/p>\n

Despite the uncertainty over the pool, Jinju Thompson and Lennosuke Suzuki vowed to keep working to prepare for competitions and encourage swimmers to remain in the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that the pool closed, but we have the ocean\u2014there\u2019s a big place to practice. We will train here until the pool reopens,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it will be soon, as although we can still practice here (ocean), there are certain things we need to work on and they can only be done at thepool,\u201d Suzuki said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The closure of the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool will not stop Saipan Swim Club members…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":285776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3107,8653,163,168],"class_list":["post-285775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-civic-center","tag-jacoby-winkfield","tag-kids","tag-ssc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}