The Philippines is getting ready to send more swimmers to Olympic qualifiers as the Philippine Swimming Inc. is awaiting word from the world body, FINA, on how to go about it.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has forced the FINA to cancel numerous qualifiers to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, including the 2021 Aquatics World Championships in Fukuoka, which will now be held from May 13 to 29, 2022.
The competition was supposed to serve as a qualifier for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which was moved to to 2021.
“May pag-asa pang magkaroon ng qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics,” said PSI president Lailani Velasco.
There are four swimmers who have a big chance of making it to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, namely James Christian Deiparine, Remedy Alexis Rule, Jasmine Alkhaldi and Luke Michael Gebbie.
They have hit the Olympic Selection Time (OST-B) for the Olympic Games during the recent 30th Southeast Asian Games.
Of the four, Gebbie improved his chances again when he won a silver medal at the Victoria Open Swimming Championships last March, finishing second the in the men’s 50m Freestyle finals at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre (MSAC), Australia.
Gebbie was seeded fourth going to the finals with a prelims' time of 23.21 seconds
He then made his way to a silver-medal finish with a time of 23.06 seconds.
While also there, Gebbie clocked 22.43 seconds as the second swimmer of the Melbourne Vicentre’s relay team during the men's 4x50m Freestyle relay.
His feat surpassed his 22.62-second national record; moving him closer to the 22.01 qualifying time-A of the Tokyo Olympics.