{"id":390085,"date":"2023-04-24T06:04:47","date_gmt":"2023-04-23T20:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=390085"},"modified":"2023-04-24T06:04:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T20:04:47","slug":"pbs-across-the-board-in-tsunami-saipan-time-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/pbs-across-the-board-in-tsunami-saipan-time-trials\/","title":{"rendered":"PBs across the board in Tsunami Saipan time trials"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tsunami Saipan Swimming Center swimmers pose for a group photo in the pool after their recent time trial.(CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tsunami Saipan Swimming Center swimmers are priming up for next month\u2019s selection trials for the 2023 FINA World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan by resetting their personal bests in a recent time trial.<\/p>\n

National swimmer Isaiah Aleksenko reset his personal bests in all his swims\u2014the 40m and 80m butterfly, backstroke, breastroke, freestyle, and 160m freestyle.<\/p>\n

In becoming the best swimmer in the time trials, the Marianas High School student beat teammate Jinnosuke Suzuki\u2019s top time of 1:22.14 in the 160m freestyle by swimming in 1:18.66.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJinnosuke is the CNMI national record holder in the 200m freestyle and he set that mark last year in the FINA World Championships in Melbourne, Australia. To beat his time means that Isaiah\u2019s 200m freestyle level has improved considerably,\u201d said Tsunami Saipan coach Hiroyuki Kimura.
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<\/a>
Tsunami Saipan Swimming Center coach Hiroyuki Kimura has a teaching moment with younger swimmers during their recent time trial. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Kean Pajarillaga also impressed in the time trial by posting PBs in the 40m and 80m butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle, and 160m freestyle and backstroke.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, Kean beat Juhn Tenorio\u2019s top time of 1:30.51 in the 200m backstroke. Kean marked 1:29.36 in this time trial. It\u2019s the first time for Kean to closely match Juhn\u2019s time,\u201d said Kimura of his ward from Grace Christian Academy.<\/p>\n

A rising star in Tsunami Saipan\u2019s constellation is 14-year-old Kouki Watanabe, who has emerged as the club\u2019s best swimmer in the breastroke. During the time trial\u2019s 160m breastroke, the MHS student posted a time of 1:43.32.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTsunami Saipan\u2019s top 160m\u00a0 breastroke swimmer is Jinnosuke Suzuki. Jinnosuke is a great breastroker and still holds the CNMI age group record, and he swam the breastroke part in the medley relay in the last World Champs in Melbourne. However, Kouki already beat Jinnosuke\u2019s time and he was already 17 years old then. This is so amazing!\u201d said Kimura.<\/p>\n

Kimura said Justin Ma of GCA and Richard Zhao of Saipan Community School also gave good accounts of themselves during the time trials.<\/p>\n

Kimura said the two 13-year-old boys marked their best times in every event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin\u2019s best event was the freestyle and he showed very high performance in all his events in that stroke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhao\u2019s forte is the breastroke and Kimura said Zhao has never beaten Maria Batallones in any races in that stroke until the recent time trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time he finally won against Maria in all the breastroke events (40m breastroke kick and 40m, 80m, and 160m breastroke swim). Maria is a CNMI national swimmer and a CNMI record-holder, so it\u2019s not easy for the younger Zhao to win against her,\u201d said Kimura.<\/p>\n

Leo Li also surprised the Tsunami Saipan coach during the time trials as the 7-year-old Garapan Elementary School student got a higher ranking than older swimmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially in the breastroke, he is a once-in-a-decade talent. I\u2019m really looking forward to seeing how Leo\u2019s breastroke evolves in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimura saved his best praise for two of Tsunami Saipan\u2019s youngest swimmers in\u00a0 6-year-olds Lucy Shin from Brilliant Star School and Juwon Park of GCA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite being the youngest, both of them showed their best performance. Lucy in particular got a higher rank than many of our older members. As the next generation that follows Leo, I want them to continue to do their best,\u201d said Kimura.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tsunami Saipan Swimming Center swimmers are priming up for next month\u2019s selection trials for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":390058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-390085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-tsunami-saipan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390085","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}