Two recruits from the United States will join Rio Olympics veterans Jessie King Lacuna and Jasmine Alkhaldi and six others on the Philippine delegation to the 29th Southeast Asian Games this August in Malaysia.
Breastroke ace James Deiparine of Santa Clara, California and freestyle expert Nicole Oliva of Phoenix, Arizona, were included by the Philippine Swimming Inc. to the Aug. 19-30 SEAG in Kuala Lumpur.
Also making the grade include seasoned internationalist and Miami-based Roxanne Yu, Rosalee Mira Santa Ana, Joshua Hall, Maria Lipat, Nicole Pamintuan and Xiandi Chua.
In swimming alone, almost 40 golds will be up for grabs but sports officials aren’t certain whether the swimming squad can deliver a gold since the last time swimming hit paydirt was in the 2009 edition in Laos when Miguel Molina, another Fil-Am, was still around.
In Singapore two years ago, Alkhaldi could only come up with a bronze.
The last two years, the swimming association has been plagued with leadership problems stemming from the inactivity of Mark Joseph.
Despite Joseph’s inability to appear, the PSI continued to run the show under Lani Velasco, handpicked by Joseph to call the shots to act as secretary general.
