By Roselyn B. Monroyo
Variety News Staff

RECORD-BREAKING swims were posted in yesterday’s Saipan Swim Club’s the Meek, Mighty and Tweener Lagoon Swim at the Pacific Islands Club.
Leading the list was SSC developmental pool product Lester Lapuz, who ruled the Meek male 1000m event with his record time of 16 minutes, 21 seconds.
Lapuz, who according to SSC coach Michael Stewart, has been into swimming for only 10 months and was promoted to the SSC team in October, broke Willy Garon’s record by more than one minute. Garon won last year’s 1000m swim.
The 12-year old Lapuz defeated seven other swimmers in the Meek male division. He beat second placer Junior Pamaran (17:26) and third placer Kaisei Toda (19:55).
Other participants in the Meek male were Michael Moran (20:40), Jack Sharer (22:51), Christian Yamada (22:56), Philip Yoon (25:26) and Joey Yamada (25:59).
The second record-breaking swim came from visiting Korean Kwon Chui Kim, who posted a new 5000m course mark in the Mighty male division with his 58:30.69.
Kim is on Saipan to train for the Tagaman, which will be held here next month.
Kim downed former NMI swim team member Rezne Wong, who placed second with a time of 1:05:53. Wong was followed by Cooper Graf (1:06:31), Colin Thompson (1:08:19), Kyu Tae Byun (1:19:11), Dirk Sharer (1:20:51), Blair Nicholls (1:28:13) and Ben Wood (1:30:57).
In other results, Opal Northen topped the Meek female 1000m with a time of 19 minutes, dropping two minutes, 51 seconds from her time last year.
Joining Northen in the winners’ circle were Mieko Carey, Dominique Austin, David Palacios and Maimi Shimizu.
Carey and Mieko tied for first place in the Tweener female’ 3000m swim with identical times of 44:31. Ten other swimmers joined the Tweener female race.
Micronesian Games gold medalist David Palacios dominated the Tweener male with a clocking of 42:08. He beat seven other participants.
Shimizu won the Mighty female with a time of 1:29:50.00.
A total of 38 swimmers joined this year’s event and Stewart thanked the volunteers and PIC’s Kieran Daly and Jon Cramer for their assistance in the annual swim.