Athletics and swimming youth brigades made their marks in SEAG

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HEATHER WHITE — POC

NAOMI CESAR — POC

OFFICIALS of athletics and swimming see a rosy future as their youth brigades made their marks in their big hauls in the recent Southeast Asian Games (SEAG).

The track and field stalwarts emerged as the top-performing group for Team Philippines with five gold medals, seven silvers and 19 bronzes — their most medal haul (31) since the 1983 edition (32).

Their counterparts in the pool accounted for a third-best production of 3-9-2 — their best since a 4-6-11 harvest in 2009.

And the young guns were a big part of this success.

“The Philippines is now slowly building up an inventory of world-class, very young heroes and with great potential to be worthy of emulation by Filipino youngsters,” said athletics association chief Terry Capistrano.

Naomi Cesar, at 16 became the youngest SEAG athletics gold medalist with her sizzling performance in the women’s 800-meter (m) run while Hussein Loraña, 21, topped the men’s side.

Jeralyn Rodriguez, 18, took the bronze in the women’s 400 m and added another podium finish in the women’s 4×100-m relay, while Alfred Talplacido, 18, got bronze in the mixed 4×400-m relay.

It’s the same in swimming.

“The young swimmers did really, really well,” Philippine Aquatics, Inc. Secretary General Eric Buhain told The STAR.

Heather White, 18, helped the Kayla Sanchez-led crew in winning the historic women’s 4×100-m freestyle relay then netted a solo silver in the 100-m free plus two more runner-up finishes in the 4×200-m free relay and 4×100-m medley relay and a bronze in 50-m free.

Miranda Renner, 19, grabbed silver in the women’s 50-m butterfly and 4×100-m medley relay while Gian Santos, 19, placed second in the men’s 200-m individual medley and Logan Noguchi, 20, made the podium in the men’s 50-m fly.

Though without a medal, Kyla Bulaga, 15, drew raves after advancing to the finals in all her seven events in Thailand. — Olmin Leyba