Olympian Leads National Swimmers In 2016 PNG

Olympian Jessie Khing Lacuna led the national swimmers to a show of force in the pool Thursday submitting times that they claim are right on target, even as the Philippine team pulled way with heavy victories in taekwondo and weightlifting in the 2016 Philippine National Games (PNG) here.

Lacuna, 22, ruled all three events including the 200-meter individual medley, one of the events he’s focusing on to qualify for the Rio Olympics.

Hannah Dato reigned in all four events she competed in namely: 100m butterfly, 200 IM, 50m backstroke and 50m freestyle, while Axel Ngui bagged gold in 50m backstroke.

“It’s more of testing it, we don’t need to get our times here. The good thing is that we’re not tapering,” said Dato, 21, who along with Lacuna and Ngui are competing in the Singapore national age-group next week.

“We can say that we are on track,” added Lacuna who said he’s still two seconds off the Olympic qualifying time of 2:00.28 in 200IM, and five seconds slower than the 400m free qualifying time of 3:50.40. Lacuna also stamped his class in 50m free and 100m fly.

Eighteen-year-old Mary Angelic Saavedra became the most bemedalled athlete in the pool with seven gold medals. The swimmer from Manila, who studies at University of Santo Tomas, topped the 400m IM, 200m back, 200m free, 200m back, 400m free, 100m back and 800m free. She placed second to Dato in 100m fly.

The Nationals padded their lead in the standings with 49 golds, 20 silvers and eight bronzes, hitting pay dirt in taekwondo and weightlifting which brought Team Philippines 18 golds each.

Like Lacuna, Olympic hopeful Hidilyn Diaz led the national lifters in a major haul. The two-time Olympian Diaz won women’s 58kg with 92 in snatch and 120 in clean and jerk for a 212 total in weightlifting competitions held at Lingayen Town Plaza. Her teammate Nestor Colonia ruled men’s 62kg (120-150 and 275 total).

Over at Lingayen Central School Gym, Jenar Torillos led the PH Team charge with gold in flyweight. Joining him were Joaquin Mendoza (bantamweight), Arven Alcantara (lightweight), Eddtone Bobb Lumasac (welterweight), Abram Lance Cuvinar (middleweight), Keybert Lee Lumbania (heavweight).

Karen Cells led the PH jins in women’s category winning finweight gold. Noelyn Rose campos (fly), Nicole Abegail Chan (bantam), Rhezie Arazon (feather), Nicole Ann McCann (light), Paolo Rose Salazar (welter) and Camille Ann Bonje (middle).

Team Philippines also picked up gold in greco-roman wrestling through Joanathan Maquilan in senior 66kg, Maxwell Francisco in senior 71kg and Jefferson Manatad in senior 75kg.

Pangasinan, on the strength of a 19-medal spree Wednesday took three golds in junior level of greco-roman. The host province is now at sixth place.

Baguio City nosed out Cebu City in the second place of the medal tally with a 17-6-4 count so far, as it picked up 13 golds in taekwondo. Cebu City is at third with 14-11-16, Manila fourth (9-0-4), Zamboanga City fifth (7-14-13), Pangasinan sixth (4-9-11), Hungduan, Ifugao seventh (4-6-4), Koronadal City 8th (4-4-2), University of the East 9th (4-2-3), and La Union 10th (4-2-0). (PNA) LGI/PR/JFM