Pinoy tankers relegated to gutter in Rome

MANILA, Philippines - As in the Beijing Olympics last year, the national swimmers failed to get past the heats in their respective divisions in the World Cup swimming championships, a gathering of the world’s fastest swimmers, in Rome.

Reports from the internet showed Ma. Georgina Gandiongco finishing 74th in the heats of the women’s 100m butterfly with a time of 1:04.34, way below the winning time of 56.76 by Sarah Swostrom of Sweden.

In the men’s event, Olympian James Walsh swam to a time of 56.38 seconds to finish 96th in the preliminaries, over six seconds behind the best time of Milorad Cavic (50.56).

In the men’s 50m freestyle, Daniel Coakley finished 68th with a time of 23.32 seconds while Kendrick Uy was 101st in 24.01. Cesat Filho Cielo posted the best time in the heats in 21.37.

Miguel Molina, the most bemedalled tanker in the 2007 Southeast Asian Games, had the best performance among the Filipino swimmers, finishing his favorite 400m individual medley in 4:26.27, but that was over 15 seconds slower than the best time of 4:10.04 by Scott Tyler Clary.