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03/05/25 - Swimming prodigy and 2024 Northern Marianas Sports Association Male Student-Athlete of the Year, Isaiah Aleksenko, is continuing to grow his list of achievements during his collegiate debut just as it did when he was still a high school student in the CNMI.
The 18-year-old, in his first official collegiate swim meet held last Feb. 6-8, reeled in five gold medals, broke four records, collected the title of National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Men's Swimmer of the Month for the second time this season, and for his overall performance in his debut, was named the Sun Conference Swimmer of the Year.
In the Sun Conference Championships held at the Florida Aquatics Swimming & Training facility in Ocala, Florida, the Keiser University Seahawk freshman splashed to the gold medal and broke NAIA records in the 100m butterfly with a time of 45.96 seconds, and 200m butterfly at 1:44.55.
In the 100m backstroke, Aleksenko won his third gold medal, and broke his school’s record and meet record with a time of 46.49 seconds. As for the relays, he won gold in both the 200m freestyle medley and in the 400m medley relay, where he set a new meet record at 3:12.17.
In a Zoom interview with Marianas Press, he said of his achievements, “I felt good because it was unexpected and it really motivated me to push harder, so that in the future years, I can break records again, and hopefully do other events as well and break those records.”
After debuting and racking up accolades in the Conference Championships, the next big event for Aleksenko is in the NAIA Nationals at Elkhart, Indiana tomorrow.
Heading into that, he said, “I’m really manifesting my best times… so mentally, I’m really thinking positive. Physically, we’re doing taper. Training and weights is a lot easier.”
The multi-awarded swimmer left for Florida last August and said that transitioning from his island home is “definitely challenging” as “there’s a lot more competition and a lot more people. With that, he said, “I just train more. I stay consistent with my training and plus the training here is better than back home just because we have better equipment and pools. And for gyms, we have certified gym instructors. So, I just got better from there.”
The general engineering student typically has a full week of training, with only Sundays off. On how he balances school and training, he said, “The classes I have [are] not that hard right now because I’m a freshman so it’s not that bad. It’s going to be harder in the later years, but I usually have time after the afternoon practice to do homework.”
He then gave his appreciation to people back home and said, “I just want to say thank you to everyone, especially my mom, my family, and also his coach, Hiro Kimura, and his wife, Ms. Yuko, because without them, it wouldn’t be possible and they really motivated me. And I really hope that in the future, they can give us a pool for the younger swimmers, so they know what it’s like to have an actual pool.”
The aqua athlete, who was a member of the NMI National Swim Team that blew everyone out of the water in the 2024 Micronesian Games, is gearing up to compete for the NMI in the Pacific Mini Games in Palau this summer.
Story by Leigh Gases
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