by Kristel Satumbaga
Remedy Rule, Luke Gebbie and James Deiparine failed to make it even to the semis round but managed to eclipse their respective national records in the 18th FINA World Swimming Championships on Tuesday in Gwangju, South Korea.
Rule, a 23-year-old Fil-American graduate from University of Texas, clocked 2 minutes and 11.38 seconds to finish 19th among 33 swimmers in the women’s 200-meter butterfly to surpass her own PH mark of 2:11.56 made just last month at the TYR Pro Swim Series in the United States.
Her time narrowly missed the 16-swimmer semifinal that saw Spain’s Mireia Belmonte snagging the last qualifying spot in 2:10.63.
Rule’s feat also surpassed the SEA Games record of Singapore’s Quah Jing Wen, who clinched the gold at the 2017 Kuala Lumpur edition in 2:12.03.
It was the second national record erased by Rule after posting a new mark in the women’s 100m fly over the weekend.
Also making the best of their participation in this world-stage event was Gebbie, a Fil-Kiwi representing the country for the time, after timing 49.94sec to finish 42nd in the men’s 100m freestyle preliminaries.
His time, however, exceeded his own PH mark of 50.25sec made last June in the AON New Zealand Open Championships and also surpassed the current SEA Games bronze-medal standard of 50.56sec.
Deiparine, for his part, finished 33rd in the men’s 50m breaststroke prelims with 27.91sec but broke his own mark of 28.13sec at the 2017 FINA Worlds in Hungary.
His record already eclipsed the SEA Games gold-medal mark of 28.07sec by Indonesia’s Indra Gunawan.
Not to be outdone, Youth Olympian Nicole Oliva swam 2:04.26 to finish 34th in the women’s 200m free.
