Lacuna weighs options for future

LONDON – Filipino swimmer Jessie Khing Lacuna has four years to improve on his time in the 200-meter freestyle event until the next Olympics and where he enrolls for college will determine how to properly prepare for Rio de Janeiro.

Lacuna, 18, clocked 1:52.23 at the Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, Indonesia, last year to make the grade for London but fell short of the mark at the Aquatics Center here, finishing 36th of 41 with a time of 1:52.91.

Now, the Trace high school graduate is looking forward to a college career which will fuse his goals in sports and academics. Lacuna said he could stay in the Philippines or go to school abroad, perhaps in Australia. His decision will depend on what Philippine Swimming Inc. president Mark Joseph and national coach Pinky Brosas advise. After his experience here, Lacuna said he wants to redeem himself in Rio.

Joseph said the ideal situation is for Lacuna to enroll in a program supervised by Australian coaches in Manila. Brosas noted that in the US, swimming scholars are often too focused on NCAA competition and lose sight on the bigger picture in the Olympics. Both agreed that the next four years will be crucial in developing Lacuna as a competitive swimmer.

“It’s possible that Jessie will stay in Manila,” said Brosas who competed in the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly and 4x100-meter freestyle relay events at the 1972 Munich Olympics. “We’re now evaluating offers for Jessie. He could train on occasion in Australia where we are in touch with coaches like Michael Bohl and Jim Fowlie. We could bring in Australian coaches, too, to look over Jessie’s development. There will be an emphasis on classroom education. We also plan to offer a high school program for swimmers from Grade 8 to Grade 12.”

Brosas, 56, made his Olympic debut as a coach in 1988 with swimmers Eric Buhain and Akiko Thomson. Then, he returned in Beijing 20 years later with Miguel Molina, Daniel Coakley, Ryan Arabejo, James Walsh and Christel Simms. Brosas began his swimming career in 1969, turned to coaching in 1975 and is now producing contenders in the Center of Excellence at Trace College in Los Baños. Two of his protégés are Lacuna and Fil-Saudi Jasmine Alkhaldi who competed in the 100-meter freestyle here.

“We’re excited about our program at Trace because we train under a controlled environment,” said Brosas. “We’ve been running the program the last six years with much success. For Jessie, we’re not too sold on a US scholarship. Obviously, we want to take him to the next level. It will take a lot of hard work, swimming six hours a day for the next four years if he wants to return to the Olympics.”

Brosas said Lacuna broke out too fast at the Aquatics Center last Sunday, clocking 26.03 in the first 50 meters then slowed down to 27.79 in the next 50, 28.85 and finally, 30.24. “I think he was too excited,” said Brosas. “He could’ve finished stronger but got too tired in the end. Charge it to experience. At the halfway mark, his time was 53.82 when he usually does 54.5 to 54.9. It caught up with him in the last 25 meters. What you like about Jessie is his positive attitude. He really soaked in everything he could in learning from other swimmers here. After his competition, we sat together and observed every finals. It was the same with Jas.”

Joseph said Lacuna’s progress leading up to the Olympics has been phenomenal. “His discovery was during the Philippine Olympic Festival in 2007,” said Joseph. “He went on to qualify for the Youth Olympics and at 17, broke Miguel Molina’s Philippine record in the 200-meter freestyle which Miguel set at 23. In tracking the development of our elite swimmers, we use the Philswim Star system or Swimmer Talent, Achievement and Recognit…ion which is based on the FINA point score algorithm. Every swimmer has a chart that records times for every stroke and distance against the years of training and preparation leading to Olympic qualification. Coaches, parents and swimmers use it to validate goals, training plans, priorities and potentials. We use it for talent identification and prioritization of funding.”

Joseph pointed out that Alkhaldi earned a scholarship at the University of Hawaii under coach Victor Wales through the Trace program and the Philswim Star system.

Molina, the country’s most successful swimmer in the Southeast Asian Games with a total haul of 11 gold medals and a two-time Olympian, could’ve participated here but chose to give up his slot “to give way to new talents.” He said, “I am proud to have been a part of this transformation (in Philippine swimming), evidenced by the two homegrown swimmers in the London Olympics…I hope that the path I took can serve as a guideline for future elite swimmers who have a desire of taking their careers to a new level after college…as I have experienced this first-hand, it makes a world of difference when the federation is on the same page as the athletes.”

Lacuna, the third of five children, learned to swim when he was three and began competing at six. He was 13 in his first international event. Lacuna’s older brothers Jay-R, 28, and Billy, 27, were former UST swimmers. Younger brother Dexter, 14, studies at Marcelo H. del Pilar High School in Bulacan and sister Angelica, 11, is in elementary. Lacuna said he wouldn’t have become an Olympian without the support of his parents Marcelo and Corazon. His swimming idols are Buhain, Molina, Ryan Lochte and Park Tae Hwan.