Olympian Kayla Sanchez and a host of seasoned campaigners splashed their way to the spotlight even as new foreign-based bets made waves on a rain-soaked opening day of the 2025 National Swimming Tryouts on Friday at the Teofilo Yldefonso Swimming Center inside the historic Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila.
The 24-year-old Sanchez, who won a relay silver medal for Canada in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics before switching allegiance to the Philippines, immediately stamped her class by breaching the qualifying time standards (QTS) in two events to assure herself of a slot in the national team bound for the 33rd Southeast Asian Games in Bangkok this December.
Currently the country’s top female swimmer since donning the national colors in 2023, the University of British Columbia alumna ruled the women’s 100-meter freestyle in 55.00 seconds, shattering the 58.23 QTS. Her time was even faster than the 55.83 clocking of Singapore’s Quah Ting Wen, who bagged the gold in last year’s SEA Games in Cambodia.
Filipino British teen Heather White, 2024 Asian Age Group silver medalist, also dipped below the QTS with a 56.23 effort. 2023 Cambodia SEA Games champion Xiandi Chua (56.95) and 2022 Hanoi winner Chloe Isleta (58.08) likewise broke the barrier.
Sanchez completed a golden double after topping the women’s 50-meter backstroke in 29.00 seconds, ahead of Palawan’s Quendy Fernandez (29.23) and Fil-Am SEA Games medalist Teia Isabella Salvino (29.85). Both Fernandez and Salvino also cleared the QTS, although Salvino fell short of her 28.99 bronze-medal time two years ago.
Two-time World Junior Championship veteran Jasmine Mojdeh of Behrouz Elite added to the day’s highlights by clinching the women’s 200-meter butterfly in 2:18.18, narrowly beating the QTS (2:18.26) and edging out Patricia Mae Santor (2:19.45) and Shairinne Floriano (2:25.40) of Ilustre East,
“It’s bad weather but good results for our top swimmers, especially Kayla (Sanchez), whose 100-meter freestyle time is already SEA Games gold-medal level. We still have four months to prepare,” said Philippine Aquatics, Inc. (PAI) Secretary-General Eric Buhain, who braved the heavy rains and flooding in Metro Manila to watch the action.
Filipino-Japanese standout Logan Wataru Noguchi also turned heads, pocketing two golds in QTS times. Noguchi ruled the men’s 100-meter freestyle in 50.18 seconds, beating Fil-Am world championship campaigner Gian Santos (51.30) and veteran Albert Amaro (51.48). He followed it up with a 26.04-second win in the 50-meter backstroke, where fellow Fil-Am Joran Paul Orogo (26.05), Fil-Mongolian Metin Junior Jason Mahmutoglu (26.53), and Ivo Nikolai Enot (26.69) also made the QTS.
Other gold medalists who fell short of the standard were Santos in the men’s 200-meter backstroke (2:19.29), Floriano in the women’s 200-meter backstroke (2:45.16), Robin Christopher Domingo in the men’s 200-meter butterfly (2:07.36), and Alexander Lawrence Chu in the men’s 1500-meter freestyle (16:44.53).
With two more days of competition, Buhain expressed optimism that more swimmers will punch their tickets to Bangkok.
“Our elite swimmers are coming off training abroad, while our promising talents have shown improvement from recent tournaments. We expect more QTS performances as the tryouts continue,” he said.
