3 Tsunami Saipan swimmers stand out

 Three Tsunami Saipan swimmers made notable performances during the four legs of the Tsunami Swim Circuit Series.

“In the series, the most outstanding swimmers are Lukas Kang, Ryuto Yanai, and Miku Tammy,” Tsunami Saipan head coach Hiro Kimura said.

Eight-year-old Kang either reset or post new records in the boys U8 age group in each of the four legs of the competition. In Series 1, Kang’s 1:23.74 in the 100m backstroke event crushed the 1:26.54 he submitted on Feb. 5, 2011. Then in the 50m freestyle, Kang’s 34.33 seconds surpassed the 36.18 seconds mark of Yanai (April 16, 2011).

In the Series 2, Kang reset two more age group marks (100m butterfly/1:22.63) and 50m breaststroke/45.75 seconds) and shattered three more (400m freestyle /5:34.00, 100m breaststroke/1:38.22, and 50m backstroke/39.24 seconds) in the penultimate leg. Then in the last leg, Kang was still on top of his race, eclipsing one more CNMI age group record (200m individual medley/2:58.63).

“Lukas did not only update a lot of CNMI age group records, but also marked very high level result. All of his records are much faster than Guam marks. His times are so close to the qualify time of Junior Olympics in Japan. The Junior Olympics is the highest-level swim meet for junior swimmers in the world. Even in Korea, his records may have ranked in the Top 10,” Kimura said.

Yanai broke records (boys U8) in all three of the four legs of the series. In Series 1, Yanai clocked in at 1:16.11 in the 100m freestyle, surpassing the 1:17.64 he posted early this year, and then tallied 33.85 seconds to eclipse the 36.18 seconds he recorded on April 16, 2011. In the Series 3, Yanai turned in 5:42.13 400m freestyle to better the previous mark of 6:09.43 Kensuke Kimura made on Feb. 25, 2005 and in the final series, he reset two more CNMI age group marks (50m freestyle/33.65 seconds and 200m freestyle/ 2:45.35).

“Ryuto’s 50m freestyle record is faster than Guam’s. His time is closer to the Junior Olympics’,” the Tsunami Saipan mentor said.

As for Tammy, she became only the second CNMI female swimmer (the first one was Angel Marie Tan) to make it into the record books for the past three years. The 9-year-old swimmer graced the CNMI record books for the first time after timing in at 5:43.69 in the girls 9 to 10 400m freestyle race, four seconds faster than previous record-holder Amanda Johnson, who logged 5:47.72 in the same event on April 26, 2002.

“She broke CNMI record only once, but Miku is still 9 years old and just started swimming in the summer of 2010, so her improvement is really fast. She will break more records in the future. Her time in the 200m freestyle and 50m butterfly are just about a second behind the CNMI age group marks,” Hiro Kimura said.

Overall, Kimura said Tsunami Saipan swimmers did well in the series and thanked his wards for showing up on time and completing the events.

“Almost everyone showed up on time at the pool and started warming up. That was very important because if there are the no warm-ups, you can never expect a good performance from the swimmers,” he said.