Tsunami swimmers aim for PBTs in Tokyo

 Tsunami Saipan’s Kensuke Kimura and Shigeki Tenorio won’t be settling for anything less than personal best times when they compete in the FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup 2011 in Tokyo, Japan this month.

“Their priority is to have new personal best times,” said Tsunami Saipan coach Hiro Kimura, who will be accompanying the two CNMI representatives to the FINA World Cup that will be held on Nov. 12 and 13 at the Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center.

Both Commonwealth bets will be racing in two events with Kensuke Kimura entered in the 100m individual medley and 50m freestyle swims of the short course tournament (25-meter pool). Tenorio will be competing in the 50m breaststroke and 50m freestyle races. The younger Kimura’s PBT in the 100m IM and 50m freestyle read at 1:03.25 and 26.53 seconds respectively, while Tenorio holds PBTs of 32.23 seconds in the 50m breaststroke and 27.08 seconds in the 50m freestyle.

Hiro Kimura added that having a new PBT in the 50m breaststroke will give Tenorio more confidence in beating Renze Wong’s long course record in the same event (31.62 seconds).

“A new PBT will move Shigeki one big step towards surpassing Rezne’s record,” the Tsunami coach said.

As for his son, Kensuke, the older Kimura said the FINA World Cup meet will give the 15-year-old swimmer another opportunity to compete in a short course tournament.

“He was scheduled to compete in the Tokyo Sprint early this year and go for PBTs, but the event was cancelled due to the earthquake. He trained hard for several months for that event. Now, he has another chance to join a short course meet through the FINA World Cup and it will be precious to him,” the older Kimura said.

“Kensuke will aim to break Rezne’s record of 1:02.54 in the 100m IM event in the Japan Open in 2009. At that time, Rezne was 17 years old, so for a 15-year-old swimmer like Kensuke, it is a very big challenge,” the Tsunami Saipan coach added.

Hiro Kimura hopes that after the FINA World Cup, Kensuke and Tenorio will compete in more off-island tournaments to improve their skills and share their experience to younger swimmers.

“When our swimmers go off island and compete in international tournaments, they get to learn new techniques from world-class athletes. Then when our swimmers return to Saipan, they not only practice these new skills, but also share them to their teammates, “ Hiro Kimura said.

Competitors in the Tokyo tournament include winners in the first four of the seven-leg World Cup series. The first four events took place in Dubai, Sweden, Russia, and Germany. Tomorrow, the fifth leg will start in Singapore (Nov. 4 and 5), while the sixth will move to Beijing, China (Nov. 8 to 9) before the last stop in Tokyo.

The grand winner of the series will take home $100,000 (each for men’s and women’s). Points are awarded to swimmers in each leg and these will be tallied after the Tokyo event to determine the men’s and women’s champions.