PARIS. – Kayla Sanchez failed in her bid in the women’s 100m freestyle semifinals in the Paris Olympics Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) but won’t go home empty-handed.
Sanchez became the latest member of the exclusive club of Filipino swimmers who made it to the semifinals since the great Teofilo Yldefonso won the country’s first medal, a bronze, in the 200m breaststroke of the 1928 Games.
The other Filipino swimmers in the elite club are three-time Olympian and Asian Games champion Amman Jalmaani (1968) and Remedy Rule (Tokyo 2020).
Sanchez highlighted her performance by breaking her own national record after clocking 53.67 seconds to finish No. 10 among 29 swimmers in the heats.
But the night ended sourly for Sanchez as she struggled and finished a dismal seventh in her heat, her time of 54.21 more than a second behind American Gretchen Walsh, who grabbed the eighth and last finals berth.
