FOUR YEARS after his debut in the 2012 London Olympics, Blue Eagle Jessie Khing Lacuna is in full throttle as he is now ready to make waves in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
During the Olympic trial season that ran from March 1, 2015 to July 3, 2016, Lacuna made it to the B-cut Olympic qualifying time in 4 events: 200m butterfly, 200m freestyle, 200m individual medley, and 400m freestyle. However, he will be seeing action only in the 400m freestyle finals on Saturday, August 6, 2016, 9:30AM (UTC+8) at the Olympics Aquatic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.
The race to the Olympics
Lacuna’s qualification to the Olympics has been the sweetest one by far according to the two-time Olympic swimmer. The difficulty in joining the delegation was greater for the Olympic Standard Time B-cut (OST/B) swimmers like Lacuna, since an Olympic Qualifying Time A-cut (OQT/A) was needed in order to earn a guaranteed ticket to Rio.
Although Lacuna aimed to achieve the OQT/A times— especially in the 400m freestyle–he fell short of the qualifying A-time (3:50.40). He was only able to register his best time of 3:55.34 in the 28th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games held in Singapore last June 2015.
For Lacuna, the challenge will not stop there, as the Fédération internationale de natation (FINA) will select only an estimated number of 100 swimmers from the OST/B-cut pool, as this group is the FINA’s last priority in selecting the 900 swimmers who will be bound for the Rio Olympics.
Aside from Lacuna, America-based Filipino breaststrokers Joshua Hall and James Deiparine were also able to clock OST/B times during the Olympic trial season. Hall was the second male Filipino swimmer after Lacuna to set a B-cut time of 1:02.40 in the 100m breaststroke event of the 16th FINA World Championships 2015 in Kazan, Russia. Deiparine was able to outswim Hall by clocking 1:02.34 in the 100m breaststroke event of the AT&T Winter National Championships in Washington, USA.
For the universality purposes in Olympic swimming, member country Philippines had to send one male and one female swimmer to compete in the Olympics. Hawaii-based Philippine national team player Jasmine Alkhaldi was selected to compete in the women’s 100m freestyle event, as she was the sole female swimmer who made it to the OST/B-cut. Fortunately after many prayers and months of waiting, Lacuna was officially selected by the FINA to participate in the 2016 Rio Olympics last July 13.
“I found out through an email na may nakasulat: ‘Congratulations! You are going to Rio…’ then from there, di na nawala smile ko (My smile did not fade away),” describes Lacuna. “Mas masaya ako this Rio Olympics kasi this one talaga, naghihintay ako kasi everyone was looking [forward to it]. (I was happier about the Rio Olympics this time, because this was the one I was really waiting for; because everyone was looking forward to it).”
Journey of sacrifice
Besides the technical difficulties stemming out from the Olympic selection standards, Lacuna’s road to Rio was not a walk in the park, as it was filled with personal sacrifices in order to clinch the spot in the Philippine Olympic delegation.
Right after the London Olympics, Lacuna was not aiming to qualify for the following Olympic meet. “Sinabi ko sa sarili ko na tapos na ako sa swimming and I’m just swimming for fun (I said to myself that I’m done with swimming and I’m just swimming for fun),” said Lacuna.
However, getting a chance to train in Canberra, Australia in preparation for the 28th SEA Games enabled him to clock his personal best time in the 400m freestyle. Consequently, this changed his perspective and expectations of qualifying for the upcoming 2016 Rio Olympics. Lacuna spent the rest of 2015 training for official Olympic qualifying meets, which included the 16th FINA World Championships in Kazan and FINA Swimming World Cup 2015 in Tokyo. Unfortunately, Lacuna failed to harness his potential of making to the A-cut.
With seven months to spare, Lacuna did not stray away from his ultimate goal and applied for a Leave of Absence from the Ateneo last December. After the approval of the university, Lacuna was sent back to Canberra for the second time in order for him to prepare for his next qualification meet— the 2016 Australia Grand Prix— in Brisbane, Australia.
Unlike his previous training experience in Canberra with Blue Eagle Axel Ngui and Lady Eagle Hannah Dato, Lacuna had to toil in living and training on his own for the first five weeks before his fellow blue and lady tankers joined him after the end of the second semester.
“It was tough. Training overall was tough kasi for five weeks I was alone, so mentally talaga and emotionally, it was tough,” laments Lacuna. “Honestly, the first two weeks was hard, I was crying every night because I was all alone. But the following week naman, every other night na ako umiiyak (But the following week, I was crying every other night).”
Although the shift in environment was difficult to adapt to, Lacuna was able to focus more on his training, where he describes it to be more on quality than quantity. After the three-month training period, Lacuna feels stronger and more prepared for the Olympic qualification.
A new milestone
With only a few days left before Lacuna makes a splash in the 2016 Rio Olympics, Ateneo’s prized swimmer remains grateful and optimistic about his upcoming performance. Lacuna’s main competitors in the men’s 400m freestyle are Malaysian Wilson Simm, Park Tae Hwan from Korea, Chinese representative Sun Yang and Australian Mack Horton.
“I’m looking forward [to] all of the events. Kasi if you’re looking at the line-up, you’ll never know who’s going to win each event, so it’s going to be fun and exciting in the swimming world,” says Lacuna. “I’ll just swim. I’ll just smile whatever happens because it’s the journey going there that matters.”
