Tenorio leads Saipan finishers in Tagaman

Local triathlete Lewie Tenorio this time was the fastest non-pro from Saipan to complete last Saturday’s 2012 Tagaman Triathlon.

Tenorio finished the 2-kilometer swim, 60-km bike, and 15-km run in 3:48:53 (16th overall), leading eight other Saipan finishers in the weekend road race. He improved from a second place finish last year (behind 2011 top Saipan finisher Butch Sublemente) and surpassed his 2011 time (3:51:46). The veteran triathlete, who was the third fastest home bet in XTERRA Saipan and topped his division, went on to place second in the 40 to 44 age group behind Korea’s Byunghoon Park (3:19:57). The 40-year-old Tenorio timed in at 41:15 in the swim leg in the waters off Pacific Islands, completed the bike leg from PIC to Bird Island Lookout/Suicide and Banzai cliffs and Micro Beach under two hours (1:52:15), and submitted 1:15:23 in the run leg from Micro Beach to Oleai Bar & Grill and back.

Rounding out the Top 7 in the 40 to 44 age group were five other off-island triathletes: Kwang Geun Song (4:43:41), Hiroaki Sasabuchi (4:49:44), Minoru Matsumoto (4:56:32), Takeshi Matsuoka (5:16:39), and Jin Kyung Park (6:00:41).

Tyce Mister was the second Saipan non-pro finisher and third among the host’s male triathletes behind Sublemente (3:53:23), but first in the 45 to 49 age group after clocking in at 3:54:40. Mister, who had split times of 35:37 (swim), 2:02:13 (bike), and 1:16:50 (run), defeated Guam’s Richard Leone (4:03:06), Japan’s Nobuo Ito (4:24:47), Hiroaki Kuwahara (4:44:51), and Yasuyuki Nakamura (4:30:45), Australia’s Allan Collinson (4:33:42), and Korea’s Dosang Yoo (4:41:38) and Taihee Cho (4:49:36).

Other Saipan age group winners were Kaisei Toda, Angelo Villagomez, and John Douglas. Toda won the U25 age group after completing the race in 4:21:10, with split times of 29:12 (swim), 2:17:03 (bike), and 1:34:55 (run). Villagomez submitted split times of 50:34, 2:48:43, and 1:54:25 for a combined time of 5:33:42 and a victory in the 30 to 34 age group, while Douglas reigned supreme in the 50 to 54 category with his total time of 4:00:22. Douglas posted split times of 44:06, 2:03:23, and 1:12:53 to beat fellow Saipan bets Florence Antonio (4:14:02) and Manny Sitchon (4:59:51), and United Kingdom’s Mike Adams (5:16:15).

Completing the age group winners in the men’s division were 60 and over’s Osamu Inosawa (4:24:24), 55 to 59’s Saburo Arakawa (4:50:09), 35 to 39’s Hyuksik Ha (3:45:28), and 25 to 29’s Shinichi Kubo (3:25:49).

In the women’s division, Japan’s Yuko Sugimoto (5:06:34) and Australia’s Julia Lendavi (4:58:58) won the 35 to 39 and 50 to 54 age groups, respectively, while Korea’s Soonbok Kim ruled the 45 to 49 age group. Kim timed in at 4:41:48 to top Youngmi Chang (4:49:38), Reiko Okamoto (4:59:59), and Misoon Han (5:31:36).