Athletics, aquatics building winners

MANILA, Philippines — Officials of athletics and swimming see a rosy future as their youth brigades made their mark with their big hauls in the recent Southeast Asian Games.

The track and field stalwarts emerged as the top-performing group for Team Philippines with five gold medals, seven silvers and 19 bronzes – their most medal haul (31) since the 1983 edition (32).

Their counterparts in the pool accounted for a third-best production of 3-9-2 – their best since a 4-6-11 harvest in 2009.

And the young guns were a big part of this success.

“The Philippines is now slowly building up an inventory of world-class, very young heroes and with great potential to be worthy of emulation by Filipino youngsters,” said athletics chief Terry Capistrano.

Naomi Cesar, at 16, became the youngest SEAG athletics gold medalist with her sizzling performance in the women’s 800m run while Hussein Loraña, 21, topped the men’s side.

Jeralyn Rodriguez, 18, took the bronze in the women’s 400m and added another podium finish in the women’s 4x100m relay, while Alfred Talplacido, 18, got bronze in the mixed 4x400m relay.

It’s the same in swimming.

“The young swimmers did really, really well,” aquatics association secretary general Eric Buhain told The STAR.

Heather White, 18, helped the Kayla Sanchez-led crew in winning the historic women’s 4x100m freestyle relay then netted a solo silver in the 100m free plus two more runner-up finishes in the 4x200m free relay and 4x100 medley relay and a bronze in 50m free.

Miranda Renner, 19, grabbed silver medals in the women’s 50m butterfly and 4x100m medley relay while Gian Santos, 19, placed second in the men’s 200m IM. Logan Noguchi, 20, made the podium in the men’s 50m fly.

“It just shows na pagdating sa sports na swimming, may mga dumarating na nadidiscover. Tuloy-tuloy lang, nagkaroon na tayo ng puhunan,” added Buhain.