{"id":408206,"date":"2024-04-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=408206"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Isaiah-bags-50m-butterfly-bronze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Isaiah-bags-50m-butterfly-bronze\/","title":{"rendered":"Isaiah bags 50m butterfly bronze"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Isaiah Aleksenko completed his own resurrection in swimming after bagging a bronze medal in the 50m butterfly in the 47th Junior Olympic Cup at the Tokyo Aquatics Center in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>Swimming his first event last March 29, the 17-year-old Marianas High School student and Saipan Community School alumnus finished third with a time 23.46 behind 18-year-olds Shouon Mitsunaga (23.11) and Rento Touge (23.31), both of Japan. Aleksenko\u2019s 23.46 also marked a new CNMI short course national record.<\/p>\n<p>Aleksenko, who finished fifth in the preliminaries with a time of 23.87, said the 50m butterfly race was so close but fun at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a fun event because of how close the race was. I was very surprised and happy because now that I think of it, I\u2019m basically the third fastest 18-and-under male in Japan which is crazy to think about. I want to thank God, my mom; my family; my coach and his wife; Kensuke [Kimura], who is my coach\u2019s son, because he helped me throughout the event; as well as my teammates for being so supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked if the bronze medal atoned for his disqualification in the 200m individual medley in last February\u2019s 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar, Aleksenko said it definitely did.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEver since the DQ I have been practicing harder and harder so this is definitely a redemption from the World Champs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Coach Hiroyuki Kimura said Aleksenko\u2019s first race in the Junior Olympic Cup was an extremely high-speed race and was a real dog fight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m super happy, of course he is very happy and he got higher motivation for his 100m butterfly the next day. The 50m butterfly is a little bit hard for him because he is not a sprinter. Though Isaiah is very fast even in a short sprint event, top junior sprinters in Japan have the sprint event as their No. 1 style. However, Isaiah survived to the finals, then won a bronze medal in the finals. It was more than amazing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Results of Aleksenko\u2019s 100m butterfly event on March 30 will be published in the next issue of Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n<p> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/59900e81df1cb0a741b6751a78bb9c13.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>From left, CNMI national swimming coach Hiroyuki Kimura, Isaiah Aleksenko, and Kensuke Kimura, the coach\u2019s son who is the personal coach of Aleksenko, pose after Aleksenko\u2019s bronze-medal 50m butterfly swim in the 47th Junior Olympic Cup at the Tokyo Aquatics Center in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/5bc0c46275768b469e2a1c0860cd24f9.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>The CNMI\u2019s Isaiah Aleksenko is seen on the Tokyo Aquatics Center\u2019s giant screen after his 50m butterfly swim in the 47th Junior Olympic Cup.<\/p>\n<p>-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isaiah Aleksenko completed his own resurrection in swimming after bagging a bronze medal in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408206","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=408206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}