Over 60 join NMISF open meet

Saipan Swim Club’s Jinie Thompson, left, and two other swimmers are at the starting block for the 200m freestyle race in last Saturday’s NMISF Open Swim Meet at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Saipan Swim Club and Tsunami Saipan were well represented in the 2015-2016 NMISF Open Swim Meet as the two groups combined for more than 60 participants in last Saturday’s event at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool.

Sixty-one swimmers from the two clubs saw action in majority of the 15 events lined up by Northern Mariana Islands Swimming Federation. Results of the weekend meet were unavailable at press time, but initial reports to their coaches saw SSC and Tsunami Saipan swimmers posting personal best times.

Swimmers were required to talk to their respective coaches after they raced to discuss their recent swim and compare their seed times to their current results.

SSC members were the first to plunge into the pool as seven of its members participated in Event 1—the 1,500m freestyle race. Kento Akimaru had the fastest seed time in the event at 20:19.44, followed by Christian Villacrusis (20:31.21), Lennosuke Suzuki (21:07.89), and Taiga Sato (21:16.39). Caleb Wang, Jin Ju Thompson, and Salofi Welch competed in their first 1,500m event.

Right after the longest race in the meet, NMISF had the 50m butterfly with swimmers divided into four heats. Tsunami Saipan’s Shoko Litulumar had the best seed time on Heat 1 with her 1:16.26, while SSC’s Jinie Thompson (48.70 seconds seed time), Tsunami Saipan’s Mark Maestro (38.10 seconds), and Takumi Sugie (30.24 seconds) led heats 2, 3, and 4.

In the third event of the day—the 100m breaststroke, only 11 swimmers joined and they were spread into two heats. Kento Akimaru had the fastest seed times in the event with his 1:18.03.

The 50m freestyle drew the most participants among the 15 events in last weekend’s meet with 57 swimmers divided into 10 heats. Sugie owned the best seed time in the pool with his 27.56 seconds.

The 50m backstroke, on the other hand, lured 36 swimmers that were put into six heats, while other individual races featured in the Tsunami Saipan-sponsored and NMISF-sanctioned meet were the 50m breaststroke, 100m backstroke, 100m and 200m freestyle, and 200m individual medley.

There were also two relay races—the mixed 400m freestyle and 200m medley.

It was an all-SSC battle in the mixed 400m freestyle relay with Wataru Kadokura teaming up with Robert DeCourteny, Andrei Kaith Lynn Chavez, and Dino Sato racing against the quartet of Coume Kaga, Mark Jainier Chavez, Ashley De Courteny, and Akira Kadokura.

In the 200m medley relay, teams were divided into two heats with SSC’s Kento Akimaru, Villacrusis, Welch, and Wang on the first heat and were joined by Tsunami Saipan’s Ayumi Obligacion, Risa Sekiguchi, Shoko Litulumar, and Maria Batallones and Rentaro Suzuki, Aasish Dangol, Sean Gil, and Jaden Castro. Heat 2, on the other hand, featured six teams with four of them coming from Tsunami Saipan.