ASIAN GAMES-BOUND swimmers Miguel Molina and Daniel Coakley set new Philippine records in the Pan Pacific swimming championships Thursday in Irvine, California.
Molina, the country’s pool hero in the past three Southeast Asian Games, smashed the 100-meter breaststroke record with a time of one minute and 3.89 seconds, while Coakley lowered the 50m butterfly mark to 25.32 seconds.
Molina broke the 1:04.18 mark set by Eric Buhain during the 1991 Southeast Asian Games in Manila, while Coakley, great grandson of Olympic bronze medalist Teofilo Yldefonso, wiped out the 25.81 standard posted by Lorenzo Dee in the 2006 Asian Games.
Philippine Aquatics Sports Association president Mark Joseph said Molina and Coakley vied in the five-day Pan Pacific meet as part of their Asiad training.
The two and the rest of the RP team are working out at the Olympic training center in Bolles School in Florida where they are supported by sports patron Dr. Cecilio Pedro of Hapee Toothpaste.
Molina, the former University of California-Berkeley standout, was the 2007 SEA Games most outstanding male athlete with four golds in Thailand.
Coakley bagged a gold in the 2009 Laos Games where he established a new SEA Games record of 22.62 seconds in his pet event, the 50m freestyle.
The other United States-based RP swimmers competing in the Pan Pacifis are JB Walsh, Ryan Arabejo and Erika Totten.
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