Get into sports, say YOG athletes

SINGAPORE – Swimmer Jasmin Alkhaldi and powerlifter Patricia Llena yesterday exhorted the Filipino youths to go into sports and start training early if they dream of competing against the best in the world.

“They should start now if they want to become athletes,” said Alkhaldi, who took the sport at age 13 and has blossomed into a top-caliber swimmer. “There is no substitute to good training.”

“But when they train, they should be serious about it and must put their hearts and mind into it,” said Llena.

The two have wrapped up their campaign in their respective events in the first Youth Olympic Games here and though they fell short of their medal bid like the rest of the nine-man RP delegation, they relished the experience of competing against the world’s top athletes in the 14-18 year-old bracket.

“We are very, very happy to have competed here. It’s once in a lifetime chance and it’s a great honor to represent your country against the best in our age groups in the world,” said the two young Olympians.

They added that the YOG experience will surely help them in their future campaigns, first with Llena, who will be going straight from here to Czech Republic to compete in the world powerlifting championship starting Sept. 2.

A world powerlifting champion, the 16-year-old Llena competed in weightlifting here, finishing fifth in the 63kg division dominated by Russian lifters.

But she said she was satisfied with her performance, where she made a good account of herself in snatch before failing in the clean and jerk at 100kg after clearing at 95kg.

“This experience will surely help us in our future campaigns,” said the roommates at the sprawling Olympic Village at Nanyang Technological University.

Alkhaldi, 17, competed in four events here, missing the finals in the 100m free and the semis in the 200m free.

She swam twice yesterday, first in the 50m free where the comely tanker barely fell short of making the 16-girl semis roster after finishing 17th in 27.10 seconds, just 0.03 seconds behind the last qualifier.

Minutes later, she competed in the 100m fly, finishing 24th in a field of 32 and out of the final cast.

But the debacle won’t prevent her from pursuing her dream of competing in the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China this November and then in the Olympics in London in 2012.

“It’s back to training and I hope to make it to the Asiad,” said Alkhaldi. “Sure, our ultimate goal is the Olympics, it’s every athlete’s dream.”

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