"Swimming has to be the first medal sport for Team NMI! We will win a medal every day, I'm sure of that," head coach Hiroyuki Kimura declared.

Isaiah Aleksenko, Juhn Tenorio, and Maria Batallones are considered to have the best prospects of winning a medal for Team CNMI out of the 15 swimmers on the strong squad.

All three competed in the FINA World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, earlier this year.

The 50, 100, and 200-meter butterfly races are Aleksenko's events in the Solomons meet. Tenorio will compete in the 50-, 100-, and 200-meter backstroke, and Batallones will compete in the same distances in the breaststroke.

In addition, the squad hopes to perform well in the men's 200- and 100-meter freestyle and 100-meter medley relay competitions.

Kean Pajarillaga, Kouki Watanabe, Andrew Nunez, Julia Jinang, Shoko Litulumar, Taiyo Akimaru, Moshe Sikkel, Michael Miller, Jinie Thompson, Piper Raho, and Nagi Tenorio make up the remaining members of the CNMI swimming squad.

Kimura stated that the CNMI National Swimming Team is taking the Pacific Games extremely seriously because it is the pinnacle of athletic competition in the area.

"It is the coach's responsibility to get as many swimmers to make it through the preliminary round, onto the final stage, and on the podium," he stated.

""While representing the CNMI, it is the swimmer's responsibility to aim for a higher ranking than swimmers from the same region in Micronesia," Kimura stated.

Source: Radio New Zealand