Saipan to host int’l swim competition

The Saipan Swim Club and Kan Pacific Saipan will be hosting the Saipan 2000 Invitational Swim Meet, the first international swimming pool competition to be held in the Northern Marianas on March 30-31.
Saipan swimmers have done extremely well especially during the past couple of years winning 54 medals in the 1998 Micronesian Games and 10 medals in the 1999 South Pacific Games. This is in addition to several medals in past Arafura Games, and other regional competitions.
Swimmers are allowed to compete in up to 10 individual events during the two-day competition and several swimmers will do that, especially in hopes of winning the Hi Point trophies for their respective age division. There will also be team trophies for the top three point winners.
Saipan swimmers will be led by current overall record holders Amanda Johnson, Myana Welch, Seung Gin Lee and Xenavee Pangelinan, with strong competition expected from many others including Rezne Wong and Tracy Feger.
Japan will send some very strong younger age swimmers, since their national championships are being held this week for the older swimmers. The largest and possibly strongest teams will be the Watermates from Yokohama and the Buccaneers from Tokyo, both teams who have had swimmers training here on Saipan in the past.
The caliber of swimmers is unknown from Palau and Korea and maybe the Philippines. Guam also has a couple good candidates for high placings with Willie and Daniel Kang and Pilar Denight.
It is also expected SSC’s freshmen swimmers will swim well to attain A standards so that they can compete in the A Championships to be held on Guam on April 28-30, 2000.
The community is invited to watch our swimmers compete with events mostly of the day on Thursday and Friday at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool.
The first event will begin at 8:00 a.m. each day. On Thursday there will be a break from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., then finish about 6:00 p.m., and on Friday, will go straight until the finish at about 2:00 p.m.
The are age group events from 50m up to 400m in all four racing strokes: Freestyle, Backstroke, Butterfly and Breastroke plus the individual Medley, and the Freestyle and Medley Relays.
Also included are four 50m Masters events in each of the four strokes and the 200m Individual Medley.
Event entries are still open for masters but will close by Thursday morning. There is a $5.00 entry fee per event for each age group, and awards will be given to the top six places in each event, males and females separately.
SSC team members would like to encourage the community to come and watch them compete, as virtually all swimming competition is off-island. After this competition there is only the A Champs on Guam at the end of April, the Pacific School Games in Sydney, Australia in early May, and the Oceania Swimming Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand in late June. Swimmers are continuously conducting fundraising activities and encourage your support. Currently the team is selling Car Wash Tickets for April 8th at Wendy’s. Please support the Saipan Swim Club.
Another big event in conjunction with this competition is the HSBC Saipan Ocean Swim to be held on April 1, 2000 at the Saipan Diamond Hotel Beach. It is open to both age group and Masters swimmers beginning at 8:00 a.m. off the beach.