INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines—After tapping the finish ahead of his competitors several times, Gian Daniel Berino has decided to risk everything to start all over again.

Deprived of support from his sport’s national federation over something beyond control and without scholarship offers in the mail, the 15-year-old junior swimming star from the University of Santo Tomas will fly to the United States to train and continue his high school studies there.

“Training abroad is more effective,” said Berino. “I want to grow stronger and improve my technique.”

Berino owns a stash of over 300 medals from local and international swim meets, but his family knows he will end up drowning in a pool of broken dreams if he continues bullying fellow juniors in competitions he already has outgrown.

“In the last three years, he has been dominating,” said Berino’s mother Susie. “There’s really only a handful [in his age group locally] who are really good. His times are actually even faster than some of the senior swimmers.”

The junior Tiger shark quickly made waves in the UAAP by winning the 2007 Most Valuable Player award in his rookie year.

And the 5-foot-9 Berino, who specializes in long distance freestyle and backstroke, continued to shatter decade-long records to keep the league’s top individual plum for the next two years.

“It starts with your natural talent,” said Berino, a nephew of former Southeast Asian Games medalist Joy Ong. “But you also have to train hard and have the discipline. It’s hard to balance your time in practice and school.”

Not in RP team

Last September, Berino ruled four UAAP events and clocked both personal best and league records in the 1,500m free (17:21.15), 400m free (4:21.46) and 200m free (2:03.24).

Unfortunately, Berino has remained out of the national team’s roster for the last couple of years due to his personal coach’s rift with the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association (PASA).

And perhaps it’s this distraction Berino also hopes to steer away from when he leaves for Servite High School in Anaheim, California next July.

“The school has a good swimming program,” said Berino. “I hope to finish my high school there, then get a scholarship for college. I want to keep on improving.”

Susie noted, however, that the decision to shell out the family’s own funds for her eldest son’s long-term training also reflects the sad state of Philippine sports.

“There’s a need to improve our national swimming program,” she said. “For the past years, we just kept sending Fil-Am swimmers in international competitions, but there’s a limit to that. We must also develop our local swimmers.”

Among the big dreams the young Berino clings on to is to represent the country in big events someday.

“I’ll be studying and training in the US, but I still want to swim for the Philippines,” he said. “I still want to make it to the Olympics and represent our country.”