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CNMI swimmers complete races
Nelson Batallones, seen here competing in Guam, completed his appearance in the 14th FINA World Championships last Friday after racing in the 50m butterfly event at the Hangzhou Olympic and International Expo Center in China. (Contributed Photo)
Team CNMI wrapped up its campaign in the 14th FINA World Championships last Saturday with Nelson Batallones and Lennosuke swimming in the squad’s last two events at the Hangzhou Olympic and International Expo Center in China.
Batallones had the penultimate appearance for the Commonwealth in the 25-meter meet, as he raced in one of the qualifying events for the 50m butterfly swim last Friday morning. He was on Heat 4 and clocked in at 29.58 seconds to beat Laos’s Slava Sihanouvong (29.99) in their group, which had Palestine’s Nabeel Hatoum (26.10) as top finisher.
The Swimming Center Tsunami Saipan also had a better time against Niger’s Albachir Mouctar (29.88 seconds), Turks and Caicos Islands’ Jack Parlee (30.21), Benin’s Jefferson Kpanou (30.79), Sierra Leon’s Joshua Whyse (31.59), the Marshal Islands’ Daniel Ranis (31.73), Malawi’s Iana Salaka (32.62), Vanuatu’s Jessy Misak (33.19), and Yemen’s Hassan Tareq-Hassan Baidar (34.20). Brazil’s Nicholas Santos posted the fastest time in the qualifiers with his 22.41 seconds and also marched into the gold medal race after a field-best 21.96 seconds in the semifinals last Saturday evening. Santos was joined in the finals by Germany’s Marius Kusch (22.44 seconds), Japan’s Takaya Yasue (22.52) and Takeshi Kawamoto (22.74), South Africa’s Ryan Coetzee (22.75) and Cha LeClos (22.34), Russia’s Mikhail Vekovishchev (22.56), and Trinidad and Tobago’s Dylan Carter.
In other results, Suzuki closed out for the CNMI when he competed on Heat 3 of the 100m freestyle event last Saturday. He finished sixth in his group after checking in at 56.91 seconds and defeating Sint Maarten’s Vadym Semkiv (59.53 seconds), the Solomon Islands’ Clifton Daromani, Guinea’s Mamadou Tahirou Bah (1:07.56), and the Marshall Islands’ Phillip Kinono (disqualified).
The Seychelles’ Dean Hoffman (51.58 seconds) ruled Heat 3, while American Caeleb Dressel topped the qualifiers with his 45.98 seconds. The U.S. swimmer then finished second to LeClos (45.89 second) in the semis to make it to the gold medal race (scheduled to last night), together with Russia’s Vladislav Grinev and Vladimir Morozov (45.93), Lituania’s Simonas Bilis, Japan’s Katsumi Nakamura (46.24), compatriot Blake Pieroni (46.31), and France’s Mehdy Metella (46.53).
Pending results of last night’s finals races, the U.S. leads in the medal standings in swimming with its 11 golds, 12 silvers, and four bronzes. Russia has a 5-3-3 tally for second place, while third-ranked Hungary has 4-1-0. Host China and the Netherland’s are in the Top 5 with 3-4-5 and 2-4-2, respectively.
Meanwhile, after completing their participation in the world championship, Suzuki, Batallones, and Jinju Thompson, who finished her two events (100m and 200m freestyle) last Wednesday, are scheduled to return to Saipan tomorrow morning.
