Sugie, Chentsova set new PBTs in PNG

The CNMI’s Takumi Sugie and Victoria Chentsova earned new personal best times as swimming competition in the XV Pacific Games kicked off yesterday at the Taurama Aquatic Centre and Indoor Sports Complex in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

The CNMI swim team members and officials pose for a group photo before leaving Saipan last week to compete in the XV Pacific Games, which is being held in Papua New Guinea. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Sugie was on Heat 1 of the qualifying races for the 50m backstroke and clocked in at 32.47 seconds to eclipse his old PBT of 33.80 seconds. Sugie placed No. 14 overall in the four heats and finished ahead of Guam’s Tanner Poppe (33.39) and Tommy Imazu (33.80).

Ryan Pini of host PNG registered the fastest qualifying time with his 26.22 seconds and eventually won the gold medal (finals time was not posted at the Pacific Games website) in the 50m backstroke. Tahiti’s Teiki Dupont recorded the second best qualifying time at 26.81 and was followed by New Caledonia’s Julian-Pierre Goyetche (27.10 seconds).

In the 100m freestyle preliminary, Chentsova submitted 1:04.31 to surpass her previous PBT of 1:04.53. Chentsova was on Heat 1 along with Fiji’s Matelita Buadromo, Tonga’s Charissa Sofia Panuve, American Samoa’s Tilali Rose Leslie Scanlan, Guam’s Pilar Shimizu, and PNG’s Savannah Raka Tkatchenko and finished fourth in her group and ninth overall, beating eight other swimmers.

Fiji had a 1-2 finish in the preliminary races with Caroline Puamau ranked first with her 59.33 seconds and Buadromo second at 59.36 seconds. New Caledonia’s Emma Terebo logged the third best qualifying time in the 100m freestyle after posting 1:00.50.

Angel De Jesus, the third CNMI swimmer in the Games, also raced in the 100m freestyle preliminaries and completed the event in 1:07.51, just over a minute slower than her PBT of 1:06.33. She was on Heat 2 and swam against Fiji’s Debra Daniel (1:07.28), Marshall Islands’ Ann-Marie Hepler (1:04.13), PNG’s Anna Mopio Jane (1:00.87), Guam’s Amanda Poppe (1:09.22), and Puamau.

Meanwhile, Sugie had his second event in Day 1 of the swimming competition, timing in at 2:16.19 in the 200m freestyle race. New Caledonia’s Jeremie Dufourmantelle ruled the qualifying with his 1:52.53, while PNG’s Samuel Mai Seghers (1:54.58) and Tahiti’s Rahiti De Vos (1:55.15) logged the second and third best qualifying times.

Besides the CNMI swim team, the Commonwealth’s sailing and va’a (canoe) squads were also scheduled to compete yesterday, but results of their races were unavailable at press time.

In other results, host PNG stayed on top of the medal standings. As of 5pm yesterday, PNG has collared eight medals, six of them are golds and one silver and bronze. Fiji is ranked second with withs 4-1-5 gold-silver-bronze tally, while Australia (2-4-0) is at third ahead of New Caledonia (2-0-2). Samoa (1-3-0) and the Federated States of Micronesia (1-1-0) are the two other countries who have gained at least one gold, while the Solomon Islands (0-2-4), Nauru (0-2-1), Tahiti (0-2-0), Guam (0-0-1), New Zealand (0-0-1), and Palau (0-0-1) also made it to the medal leaderboard.