Capas, Tarlac—For Jarod Hatch, going under 24 seconds in the men’s 50-meter freestyle had been his goal on Sunday in the National Swim Tryouts for the Cambodia 32nd Southeast Asian Games at the New Clark City Aquatics Center.
The 25-year-old Hatch said this after he broke the broke a 38-month Philippine record for the second time in the afternoon finals, this time with a 23.59 second finish.
“I did what I set out to do. I always wanted to break the record, lower any record that’s in front of me,” said Hatch after he earned his fourth gold medal to became among the most bemedaled swimmers with Xiandi Chua in the four-day meet.
The Mission Viejo, California-based Hatch already surpassed the qualifying-A time of 23.61 seconds with his clocking of 24.27 seconds in the morning preliminaries.
Hatch erased Luke Gebbie’s 24.34-second performance in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games in his bid to smash the 24.30-second QT-A for the selection for the national squad to the Cambodia SEA Games.
Aside from Hatch, Chua is among the most productive, meeting the QT-A time in the women’s 200-meter backstroke and the qualifying B-times in two others events of four events she joined.
In the last four days, Hatch swept the golds in the 100-meter freestyle, the 100-meter butterfly and the 50-meter butterfly, and hit all the QTB standards along the way.
The 21-year-old Chua finished the weekend finals with three golds and a silver and is expected to be back in the SEA Games, where she will gun for her best performance since earning a silver medal in the 4x100meter freestyle relay back in 2019.
Chua took the golds and hit the QTBs in the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter freestyle. She settled for the silver in the 400-meter individual medley.
Meanwhile, two-time Olympian Jasmine Alkhaldi grabbed three gold medals, hit all the QT-B times, and is expected to be back in the national roster following her silver- and bronze-medal finishes in the recent SEA Games in Vietnam.
Her coach Archie Lim believes that the good showing will help Alkhaldi get back into the national roster.
The Philippine Olympic Committee Stabilization Body is now reviewing the results of the four-day tryouts.
The body is tasked to oversee the swim tryouts in the country, with Bases Conversion and Development Authority Senior Vice President for Corporate Services Group Arrey Perez personally surpervising the pool operations, together with Japanese technicial officials Kazumi Eguchi.
POC deputy secretary general Valeriano “Bones” Floro, also a member of the Stabilization Committee is also helping around with POC legal head Atty. Wharton Chan, and briefed Philippine Sports Commission chairman Richard Bachmann on the outcome of the tryouts following his morning visit on Sunday.
Organizers said 12 more swimmers have met the qualifying time-B, which will put them in evaluation after hitting lower qualification times for the national pool.
The tryouts got a boost from Batangas congressman and multiple medallist, Eric Buhain, who watched on the final day.
Buhain said his organization, the Congress of Philippine Aquatics, Inc. “is supporting the POC Stabilization body’s quest for a genuine sports development in swimming.”
