One of the longest ongoing ocean swims in the Pacific Ocean continued on its tradition for young open water swimmers this past weekend. The 34th annual Saipan Swim Club Ocean Swim was held in the warm waters off the Saipan World Resort where age-group swimmers from Saipan and Guam participated in four different distances.

Victoria Chentsova won the 2.5 km race in 37 minutes 58.62 seconds over Angel Marie Tan (38:26.09) and Taloani Atoigue from Guam (50:50.68). Jeff El-Hajj finished second overall finisher in 39:55.93 as the first man.

In addition to the featured 2.5 km race, 600 meter, 1 km, and 1.3 km races were also held. 11-year-old Kento Akimaru won the 1.3 km race in 19:46 over David Boyer (25:30.34) and Genel Christian Villacrusis (28:57.96).

Lennosuke Suzuki won the 1 km in 18:33.12 over Taiga Sato (18:33:86) in a very close race. In the 600 meter swim, Conatsu Kaga defeated her younger sister, Coume, in a time of 17:39.83 while Miku Torres just barely topped Taiyo Akimaru 16:00.15 to 16:00.21.

Photo by Roselyn B. Monroyo shows Michael Villagomez fixing his goggles.

Copyright © 2012 by Open Water Source