Source: GMANEWS
Philippine Aquatics Sports Association (PASA) president Mark Joseph sees a bright future for Jessie King Lacuna after the 16-year-old made a huge splash during the 41st Singapore Age Group Swimming Championships last week.
Lacuna won four medals – three gold and one silver – and broke the Philippine record set by two-time Olympian Miguel Molina in the tournament held at the Singapore Sports School.
Joseph said Lacuna’s exploits increase the country’s chances in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. Lacuna is a late addition to the men's relay team.
“When Molina set the national record, he was 21 then. Now we have a 16-year-old (Lacuna) breaking it and speaks well of our campaign in the Asian Games especially in the relay events," said Joseph.
The PASA chief added that he’s hoping Lacuna’s new time would be enough to earn an invitation from FINA to be part of the Singapore Youth Olympics in August.
“We have achieved our goal of getting our original Youth Olympic Games qualifying time achievers making big improvements, winning medals and increasing their number of events where they achieved the qualifying standards," Joseph said.
The Bulacan-born Lacuna won his first gold medal in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of one minute and 51.20 seconds to break Molina’s 1:51.75 mark during the 2009 Laos Southeast Asian Games. He clocked 1:50.09 during the preliminaries.
Lacuna also claimed the 200-meter butterfly gold with a time of 2:03.01 to break the meet record set by Ng Tze Kang in 2008 (2:03.61). His third gold came in the 100-meter freestyle checking in at 52.13 seconds in the race.
He then won the silver in the 400m freestyle (3:59.75) finishing second behind Japan’s Haruki Washio (3:59.02). Rainer Ng placed third (4:05.90).
All times have surpassed Youth Olympic Games A qualifying marks although FINA will still rank the other times of the swimmers in order to determine the qualifiers for the Youth Olympic Games set August 14 to 26 in Singapore.
Jasmine Alkhaldi and Banjo Borja won bronze medals for the RP contingent.
Alkhaldi, who made two new RP records, took the bronze in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 26.56 seconds to break her own record of 26.51 in the Laos SEA Games.
She made another new RP record in the 100m freestyle with a time of 57.12 seconds breaking Christel Simms’s 2008 Beijing Olympics time of 59.19 seconds.
Borja settled for the bronze in the 200-meter breaststroke with a clocking of 2:25.26. – GMANews.TV
Posts
