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Villacrusis makes finals anew; More PBTs for swimmers
Christian Villacrusis checks his cap after racing in a local event at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool early this year. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)
The CNMI’s Christian Villacrusis swam in a finals race anew in the 12th Oceania Swimming Championships, while his teammates got several more personal best times during the penultimate day of the competition in Papua New Guinea.
Villacrusis qualified to the B Finals of the 50m breaststroke event for his third finals stint in the tournament after clocking in at 34.16 seconds in the preliminary race last Thursday at the Taurama Aquatic and Indoor Centre in Port Moresby. The 18-year-old swimmer, who also advanced to the finals of the 100m and 200m breaststroke events, then submitted 33.54 seconds in the finale to not only break his prelims time, but also his previous record (34.11 seconds).
Meanwhile, the Jacoby Winkfield-coached CNMI National Team earned seven more PBTs in last Thurday’s races.
In the women’s 50m breaststroke, Sophia Gauran’s 41.35 seconds in the preliminary surpassed her old PBT of 41.91 seconds and was faster than Federated States of Micronesia and Tonga swimmers and two Solomon Islands bets.
Gauran also registered a PBT in the 400m freestyle after checking in at 5:33.96, nearly two seconds better than her previous mark (5:35.62). Jinju Thompson got a PBT, too, after logging 5:19.15 (from 5:19.78).
Jinnosuke Suzuki and Juhn Tenorio duplicated Gauran and Thompson’s feats when they raced in the same event. Jinnosuke timed in at 4:33.36, chopping off more than seven seconds from his old PBT (4:41.01), while Tenorio had an over a minute drop with his 4:54.37 (from 4:55.61).
Tenorio also achieved a PBT in the 200m backstroke after recording 2:34.03 in the preliminary race. He entered the event with a PBT of 2:37.61. Nelson Batallones was on the same heat and had the biggest time drop with his 2:46.40 (from 3:03.81).
Earlier in the Wednesday evening session of the tournament, Batallones’ 34.62 seocnds in the 50m backstroke shattered his old PBT of 35.09 seconds, while Tenorio produced the same results—30.74 seconds (from 31.36).
