The Marshall islands have a rich swimming heritage and Day 6 of the swimming in Singapore offered a first chance to see a Marshall Island athlete in action. The discipline was freestyle, with Phillip Kinono going in Heat 4 of the men’s 50m sprint.
Phillip is an Olympian, who clocked his best time in this event in Paris. A time of 27.43 seconds.
Today’s time was just a little outside that – 27.90. Almost immediately, Phillip could identify where the marginal difference in times may have been.
‘I believe I took an extra breath going through the wall, which I shouldn’t do, but overall I’m happy with it, the experience here has been good. I’m just glad I’m here. The atmosphere is good. Even the humid weather reminded me of home.’
The 27 year old has a wealth of experience and this is his only race this week. So how does he reflect on his whistlestop visit to Singapore?
‘Obviously I was going for the PB but you know, I’m just glad I’m here. The experience is good, I don’t have any complaints. Just being in the practice or the warm-up pool seeing all those athletes training together; it gave me more and more confidence to train harder and to be hungrier for success.’
Philip, who was born in Majuro, the capital and largest city on the Marshall Islands and has been swimming for the islands since elementary school.
‘Growing up in the Marshall Islands we had limited training facilities. So, every time we had to train, we always went on a 20-minute ferry to the army base which is on Kwajalein. We had a 25-yards salt-water pool. It was good and when I get the chance to train over there, I go to the pool or train in the ocean. No complaints at all. I moved to train in the United States before the Tokyo Olympic Games and it gave me more opportunity to train in open facilities. Hopefully, in the future, we can have the same facilities back home, which could help make it easier for future generations of swimmers in the Marshall Islands.’
–Ends–
Written by The Reporters’ Academy