By James Sablan
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Variety News Staff
THE NMI Swimming Team made a thunderous statement at the 14th Oceania Swimming Championships, which concluded Wednesday in Suva, Fiji, rewriting the record books with a series of historic performances and medal finishes.
Competing against some of the region’s top swimmers, the NMI squad delivered multiple local and age-group records, highlighted by standout performances from Isaiah Aleksenko, Juhn Tenorio and the women’s relay team.
Perhaps the most significant performance of the championships came from Aleksenko.
Despite a record-breaking week that included two gold medals — one in the 50-meter backstroke with a time of 26.40 seconds and another in the 100-meter butterfly in 23.64 seconds — Aleksenko said his preparation was far from ideal.
“I think my performance wasn’t too bad considering I’d been out of the water for two months and only started training again about a week and a half ago,” Aleksenko said in an interview with Variety.
Aleksenko said he managed the quick turnaround between backstroke, butterfly and sprint events through specialized warm-up routines designed to prepare his body for competition.
Among his four medals, he said the 100-meter butterfly was the most meaningful.
“It was the hardest one for me to finish because I have an ankle injury from a recent accident, so I’m glad I was able to push through it,” Aleksenko said.
His message to young swimmers watching back home on Saipan was simple:
“Never give up on your goals and stay motivated.”
Tenorio provided one of the meet’s biggest highlights during the men’s 50-meter freestyle finals Monday, May 11. Entering the event with a seed time of 24.14 seconds, Tenorio first signaled his potential by dropping nearly half a second in the preliminaries to post a time of 23.68.
In the finals, the 21-year-old found another gear, shaving an additional 0.04 seconds off his time to finish in 23.64 seconds. The performance earned him a fourth-place finish overall and established a new NMI record in the event.
The NMI women’s contingent also proved formidable, particularly in the relay events.
In a performance that brought the crowd to its feet, the 400-meter medley relay team — composed of Sari Barman, Maria Guerrero, Piper, and Maria Battalones — clocked a total time of 4:59.10, breaking a long-standing record set during the 2006 Micronesian Games on Saipan.
Key splits included:
Maria Guerrero (100 butterfly split): 1:16.65
Sari Barman (100 freestyle split): 1:08.51
The youth movement was also on full display, with several age-group records falling throughout the championships.
Seventeen- to 18-year-old standout Kouki Watanabe reset records in both the 50-meter breaststroke with a time of 31.08 seconds and the 100-meter breaststroke in 1:08.02.
The team also recorded several other strong finishes, including Matthew Szefler in the 200 individual medley B final, Battalones in the 200 breaststroke A final, and Watanabe in the 200 breaststroke A final.
James Sablan has been a sports reporter for Variety since 2013. He was a liberal arts student of Northern Marianas College and covers all local sports.
