Fine watches tag her for scuba diving

Among those in the Philippine circle of competitive swimming, Gillian Akiko Thomson is a person to respect. This swimmer is a veteran competitor who represented the country in three Olympic events — in Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta (1996). Her performance and achievements in those years TAG her as one of the Philippines’ queen of swim.

She holds six Philippine swimming records for women: for the 50-meter freestyle (26.62 sec, set in Malaysia in Aug. 1980), 100-meter freestyle (59.02 sec, in Barcelona 1992), 200-meter freestyle (2 min 04 sec, in Barcelona 1992), 100-meter backstroke (2 min 16.76 sec, Barcelona 1992), and the 200-meter IM (2 min 24.19 sec, Singapore). In each instance she came within thousandth-of-a-second of establishing ASEAN records, and finished within two to six seconds of the world records.

With bemedalled swimming veteran PSC chairman Eric Buhain, she coached the Philippine swim team for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

She swam with the Philippine Olympic swim team for the 1988 Seoul Olympics when she was only 13 years old (her zeal to swim for the Philippines was her reason for acquiring Philippine citizenship), and since then she has been making waves, swimming for the country in many international events.

Her standing in the Asian athletic landscape caught the attention of Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer, which recently canvassed the region for athletes who could take part in the testing of one of its sports collections, the TAG Heuer 2000 Series. The testing was to subject the chronographs and sportswatches to extreme athletic conditions, particularly diving.

TAG Heuer gathered various athletes and celebrities from all over the region at Layang-Layang atoll off the coast of Sabah, Malaysia. Layang-Layang, a former military naval base, is one of the world’s top ten diving spots.

Akiko Thomson was there, along with Hong Kong’s Ekin Cheng and Daniel Wu, Indonesia’s Juniko Bisuk Partahi Siahaan; Malaysia’s Sean Ghazi, Deanna Yusoff, Mukhriz Mahathir and Camelia; Singapore’s Tay Ping Hui; and Thailand’s Don Theerathada, Kathaleeya McIntosh and Porncharn Chankajorn. The dive test lasted five days and four nights.

The Royal Malaysian Navy participated in the testing of the watch by applying the watches in rigorous military diving procedures. These procedures included vertical helicopter-borne frogmen jumps, night operation dives, oxidation tests, hyperbaric chamber pressure test, and deep dives.

"It’s the best dive I have ever had," gushes Akiko. For her, Layang-Layang is such a beautiful pelagic island. There are a lot to see around the pristine coral rings of Layang-Layang. Akiko would dive down to a depth of more than 50 meters to test the TAG Heuer 2000 series.