Two Filipino bets preparing for the 30th Southeast Asian Games failed to advance to the men’s 50-meter backstroke semifinals of the 7th FINA World Junior Swimming Championships on Thursday in Budapest, Hungary.
Men’s backstroke specialists Jaden Christian Olson and Jerard Dominic Jacinto had their chances after the former clocked 26.18 seconds and the latter submitted a time of 26.34 in the heats of the 50-meter preliminary, according to results posted on the event’s website.
Olson and Jacinto ranked 20th and 25th, respectively, out of 85 swimmers entered.
They missed the cut as only the top 16 swimmers advanced to the semifinal round.
The 17-year-old Olson, who was 18/100ths of a second short of his best time, made a memorable performance when he clocked the current national record of 26 seconds two weeks ago in the National Club Swimming Association Summer Swimming Championships in Indianapolis, USA.
So far, Daniel Coakley is the first and only Filipino swimmer who managed to advance to the semifinal round at the World Juniors, both in the 50-meter freestyle and 50-meter butterfly in the first edition of the championships in Brazil.
Earlier, 15-year-old Jeremiah Tandingan, broke her own 100m freestyle 14-15 year-old girls’ Philippine junior national record when she clocked 58.49 seconds in the preliminaries
This was an improvement on the 58.90-second she submitted in the 43rd Southeast Asian Age Group Swimming Championships in Cambodia last June.
This also put Tandingan up against Xiandi Chua for a slot in the national squad, which will have its final qualifiers in the national open next month, according to swimming officials.
Chua registered a SEA Games’ qualifying time of 58.4 seconds at the Philippine Swimming Long Course Grand Prix National Championships last month.
Promising tanker Jacinto, a top bet for the SEA Games, made an impression in the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships on Tuesday.
The 18-year-old Jacinto surpassed Ryan Papa’s 22-year-old Philippine national record in the men’s 100m backstroke event.
Jacinto’s time of 56.27 second eclipsed Papa’s 56.48 national record that was set at the 19th Southeast Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia back in 1997.
Jacinto was 22nd among 87 swimmers in the 100-m backstroke event.