International stints lined up for tankers

After creating big ripples in the recent Southeast Asian Games, the Philippine aquatics team is starting to look forward toward to an even bigger year in 2006.

Winner of nine gold, seven silver and eight bronze medals in the SEA Games, the RP swimming, diving and water polo teams have lined up a string of international tournaments leading up to the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar in December.

The team will try to get off to a hot start when it competes in the first Japan Open Swimming Championships in Tokyo in February.

Up next for the team are the Asian Swimming Championships in Singapore in March; World Short-Course Championships in Shanghai in April; Southeast Asian Age-Group in Jakarta in June; Southeast Asian Inter-School in Malaysia also in June; World Youth Diving again in Malaysia in July; Youth Swimming Championships in Brazil in August; Asian Interclub Water Polo in Los Baños, Laguna in September; and the Pan Pacific Championships in Vancouver on the same month.

After competing in Vancouver, the RP team will rest and focus on the Asian Games.

"We will also do camps in swimming, diving and water polo — hoping to have Croatian and Russian coaches run camps and clinics," said Philippine Amateur Swimming Association president Mark Joseph.

"PASA will formally launch synchronized swimming, open water and masters swimming programs in second half of 2006," he added.

Joseph, however, said Ryuzo Ishikawa, the Japanese coach who’s been with the RP team for the past 10 years, has decided to return to his home country where he was offered a very lucrative job.

"He has served Philippines swimming well and PASA is grateful to him for his dedication to a generation of Filipino swimmers," said the PASA president.

The RP swimming association will also intensify its talent identification program, update its membership database, conduct education and certification courses for coaches, and promote short-course (25 meters) competitions.

The newly-built Trace Aquatics Center in Los Baños, Laguna, which hosted the aquatics competition in the recent SEA Games, will be the new home for the RP tankers while they’re in training.

During the 23rd SEA Games, where the Philippines emerged the overall champion for the first time in history, the RP aquatics team made a lot of noise.

Sheila Mae Perez, the pretty Davaoeña, won three gold medals in diving (3-m springboard synchronized with Ceceil Domenios, 3-m springboard and 1-m springboard) and became the first three-gold winner for the Philippines.

Swimmer Miguel Molina also won three gold medals -400-m and 200-m individual medley and 200-m breaststroke.

Miguel Mendoza (1,500-m freestyle), and divers Zardo Domenios and Nino Carog (3-m springboard synchronized), and Rexel Ryan Fabriga and Kevin Kong (10-m platform synchronized) delivered the other gold medals for the RP tankers.