A TOTAL of 188 entries from 102 clubs from the Ilocos provinces down to southern Mindanao are converging at the New Clark City starting today, Thursday, for the official national aquatics tryouts for the Cambodia 32nd Southeast Asian Games.
With the registry book bursting at the seams–135 male and 53 female–the tryouts will go down as the biggest and most inclusive in Philippine aquatics history, according to the members of the Stabilization Committee tasked to oversee aquatics in the country.
“We are inspired by the big turnout of aspirants for the national team to the Cambodia SEA Games with the numbers going beyond our expectations,” said Valeriano “Bones” Floro, a member of the Stabilization Committee along with Philippine Olympic Committee legal head Atty. Wharton Chan and Bases Conversion and Development Authority Senior Vice President for Corporate Services Group Arrey Perez.
“The tryouts will be handled by experienced coaches and individuals who were part of the 2019 SEA Games, former and current World Aquatics licensed technical officials and members of previous qualifying events for national pool selection,” Floro added.
The officials will be supervised by World Aquatics technical director Kazumi Eguchi of Japan, whose credentials include tours of duty at the London 2012 Olympics, Rome 2009 and Barcelona 2013 world championships, Jakarta 2018 Asian Games and numerous Asian and Asian age group championships, as well as with the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2021.
