Olympic hopeful Lacuna sweeps PNG assignments
OLYMPIAN Jhessie King Lacuna talks about his chances of making it to Rio Games pic.twitter.com/uJLdPFBXub
— Marc Anthony Reyes (@1reyesmarc) March 10, 2016
SAN CARLOS CITY, Pangasinan—Chasing yet another stint in the Olympics, Jessie Khing Lacuna, went three-for-three in his events to lead Team Philippines to golden feats Thursday in the PSC-POC Philippine National Games.
The 22-year-old Lacuna, who took a leave from his studies at Ateneo to focus on qualifying for the Rio de Janeiro Games, dominated the 50-meter free-style, 100m butterfly and the 200m individual medley, one of the two events he’s hoping to swim in Brazil.
The Nationals’ clocking didn’t sink records, though.
“We can say that we are on track,” added Lacuna, who is two seconds off the Olympic qualifying time of 2:00.28 in 200 IM, and five slower than the 400m free qualifying time of 3:50.40.
Fellow PH swimmer Hannah Dato reigned in all her four events—100m butterfly, 200 IM, 50m backstroke and 50m freestyle, while Axel Ngui bagged gold in the 50m backstroke.
Dato halted 18-year-old Mary Angelic Saavedra’s binge in the juniors action.
Swimming for Manila, the 18-year-old Saavedra became the most bemedalled athlete in the pool with seven golds. The University of Santo Tomas stalwart already topped the 400m IM, 200m back, 200m free, 200m fly, 400m free, 100m back and 800m free.
Team Philippines went full steam ahead in the medal tally with 49 gold, 20 silver and eight bronze medals. On Thursday, the team raked in 18 golds each in taekwondo and weightlifting.
In archery, Atanacio Pellicer III of Quezon upset Youth Olympic champion Luis Gabriel Moreno in the recurve Olympic round event, edging Team PH’s Florante Matan. Moreno placed third.
But Moreno struck back as he paired with Olympian Rachel dela Cruz to rule the recurve Olympic round mixed pairs.
Host Pangasinan, on the strength of a 19-medal spree Wednesday, took three golds in the junior level of Greco-Roman wrestling. The host province is now at sixth place with a 4-9-11 tally.
Janry Ubas, SEA Games bronze medalist, topped decathlon with a 6,080 points, far off his SEA Games output of 6,796. The 4x100m PH relay team also ruled as Anfernee Lopena, Renato Jose Unso, Isidro del Prado Jr. and Clinton Kingsley Bautista timed 40.75 seconds.
