Northern Mariana Islands – Gold again for Isaiah
The Northern Mariana islands continue to impress in the pool, and it’s difficult to keep up, as their individual and collective records continue to tumble in Palau.
Isaiah Aleksenko followed up his gold medal in the longer version of the Butterfly by coming home first in the 50m version. That makes it a haul of 6 medals, including 4 golds for the 19 year old. His medal winning time was 23.78 seconds. Afterwards, he gave a great insight into the preparation of a successful elite athlete as he spoke about the moments before the race,
‘l stretched, meditated a lot, talked to my team-mates so I don’t get too nervous. It definitely helps talking to teammates and family members just to really flush out my brain so I don’t really think about a lot.’
Alongside this, today alone saw 5 individual and relay records beaten. Including that gold medal and 3 silvers.
One of those silvers went to 17 year old Maria Batallones placing second in the Women’s 100m Breaststroke Final in 1-14.03. It was a particularly pleasing result for Maria having told us before the Games that,
‘I’m mostly excited for the Breaststroke events because I want to see how much I’ve improved. ‘
Well, that measurement can now be measured in silver.
Kouki Watanabe aged 17 particularly enjoys the Breaststroke discipline and this showed today when he qualified for the Men’s Final of the 100m Breaststroke and posted a time of 1-05.44. A time which was inside his World short Course Championship time last December in Budapest.
Kean Pajarillaga aged 18 is enthusiastic to make the most of his technique in the Backstroke discipline. Things seem to be developing nicely as he picked up his 4th medal of these Games in the 200m backstroke Final. He stopped the watch at 2-07.29. Afterwards he gave his reaction to the silver medal.
‘It was pretty good. I tried to speed up the last hundred but my legs were kind of giving out. I just kind of gave it my all. My coach told me I got a best time. So, I’m happy about that. It feels like an honour. I feel like I represented my country well, and I came back with something, so I’m pretty happy.’
The team completed another successful day in the pool by both the men and women competing in the 4 x 200m Freestyle Relays. The women posted a time of 9-34.62 in finishing 5th. Preceding this the men picked up yet another medal. This time silver in colour as they stopped the clock at 7-53.76. The team of Moshe Sikkel, Justin Ma, Kean Pajarillaga and Isaiah Aleksenko were understandably happy and stressed the importance of enjoying being a team.
‘The secret is just good teamwork. We like to really motivate each other. So if one of us have doubts, we talk to each other and make sure that they go in the race with a good mindset. We like to just support each other, really.’
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Words & interviews: The Reporters’ Academy. Photos: Ryota Nishida