MANILA, Philippines?The Olango Challenge in Cebu on May 10 has been sanctioned by the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association as its talent identification program for marathon swimming.

PASA president Mark Joseph said the top finishers of the Olango challenge, a five-kilometer marathon swim from the Sta. Rosa wharf in Olango Island to Shangri-La Mactan, would be tapped as marathon swim candidates for the eight-man national team.

Marathon swimming makes its Olympic debut in the 2012 London games. It will be introduced as a regular sport in the 2008 Asian Beach Games hosted by Bali, Indonesia in October, Joseph added.

Marathon swimming in the beach games will have a distance of five kilometers for women and 10km for men. London Olympic organizers, however, plan to stretch the women?s race to a 10K event.

?The Olango challenge may (also) hopefully become an international event,? said Joseph.

The swim challenge also hopes to raise funds for some 20,000 indigent inhabitants of the island and rehabilitate Olango?s degraded marine life under a program spearheaded by the Philippine Business for Social Progress in cooperation with PASA and Shangri-La Mactan.

Joseph said that for every swimmer that crosses the 1,000-foot deep Gilutungan Channel, a corporate backer would make a monetary pledge to support the impoverished locality of Olango.

The PASA head is also joining the fund-raising portion of the swim event along with fellow former Olympian Akiko Thomson, local boy Tonio Aboitiz, disabled swimmer Lando Alvarez and some members of the national water polo team.