FRESH from his debut in the 22nd World Aquatic Championships in Singapore last month, promising Fil-Am swimmer Gian Santos is now eyeing to represent the country in the 33rd Thailand Southeast Asian Games in December when he vies in the SEA Games national tryouts from Aug. 22 to 24 at the Teofilo Yldefonso pool.
“I will compete in the men’s 100, 200 and 400-meter freestyle events and the 200 and 400-meter individual medley,” said the US-based Santos, who went straight to Manila after the Singapore meet to train for the national team tryouts.
At the worlds, the swimmer, who first saw action for the country in the world junior swimming championships in 2022 in Lima, Peru, clocked two minutes and .05.97 seconds in the 200 IM and 3:57.86 in the 400-meter freestyle in the heats.
An incoming BS Political Science sophomore and varsity swimmer of the famed Columbia University in New York, the 6-foot-1 athlete said that while he is seeking to qualify in six events, “I look to do my best in the 200 free and the 400 IM since I feel I have a lot of potential to do well in them, especially in the SEA Games.”
He has a personal best of 1:51.17 in the 200-meter freestyle and 4:27.26 in the 400-meter individual medley events, respectively.
Santos, a godson of PSA secretary general Robert Bachmann, said he would focus on the two events with the hope of qualifying in both of them to book his tickets to the Thailand SEA Games swim meet.
At the same time, he would not press himself too much after his grind at the World Swim meet “since it is beneficial for any swimmer to rest and recuperate physically and mentally after a hard competition like the one we did in Singapore.”
In the event he qualifies for the PH swim squad to the Thai Games, “obviously I will do my best and make my country proud of me in the sport that I excel in. I know how popular the SEA Games are here.”
He said that after wrapping his stint in the national swimming tryouts, “I will return to Columbia to resume my studies as well as prepare for our US NCAA Division competitions in October.”
Aspiring to be a lawyer, Santos, 19, said he has a better grip of balancing his swimming career and studies, “unlike when I was a freshman when I had a hard time adjusting to both.”
“I went from 14 to 20 hours of hard training in a week so that was a very big jump in our regimen.”
