By Roselyn B. Monroyo
Variety News Staff

THE NMI swim team competing in the 12th FINA World Championships in Melbourne, Australia gave coach Michael Stewart a fitting birthday gift after posting perfect lifetime best swims in Day 4 of the meet at the Rod Laver Arena.
Stewart celebrated his birthday Down Under yesterday and Sarah Johnson, Cooper Graf and Rezne Wong presented four LTBS to their coach.
Johnson started the NMI’s perfect day clocking 37.86 seconds in the 50m breaststroke, a far cry from her previous LTBS of 43.15.
Graf duplicated Johnson’s feat, as the former posted his fourth straight LTBS timing in at 1:05.75 in the 100m freestyle, 4.96 seconds faster than his previous mark of 1:10.61.
With his new LTBS, Graf qualified to represent the Saipan Swim Club in a tournament in Japan in June this year.
Wong was the last NMI bet to swim in Day 4 and he gave Stewart not one, but two LTBS.
He first competed in the 100m freestyle and recorded 58.13 seconds, which is .29 of a second faster than his previous LTBS.
“He was a bit tentative at the beginning of the race. I feel he should have been a bit faster,” Stewart said in an email.
The US’s Jason Lezak had the best time in the preliminary heats with his 49.02 seconds.
“After a talking with him, I was glad to see his race strategy change for the 200m individual medley race later in the day,” Stewart added.
Wong was third in the first 50m of the medley, but started catching up when he came to his favorite, the breaststroke part of the swim,
The Marianas High School student finished the race in 2:20.94 eclipsing his LTBS of 2:23.99. Wong ended in 65th place overall in the 200m IM race.
“By far, this was Rezne’s best race of the meet. Each day he seems to get stronger and stronger,” the NMI coach said.
Stewart added that after Wong finished the race, the MHS student said “Happy Birthday, coach.”
The US’s Michael Phelps topped the IM preliminaries posting 1:58.70.
Last Tuesday, Phelps broke Ian Thorpe’s six-year-old world record in the 200-meter freestyle, and beat Pieter Van Den Hoogenband in the finals.
The American swimmer clocked 1: 43.86 shattering Thorpe’s mark of 1:44.06, set at the 2001 world meet in Fukuoka, Japan.
Meanwhile, the NMI swimmers’ quest for LTBS continues today with Johnson competing in her favorite, 100m freestyle.
Wong is entered in the 200m breaststroke preliminaries, while Graf does not have any events lined up for him today.
“But he won’t have the day off, he has a training session on Wednesday evening, as well as Thursday morning,” Stewart added.