Raffaele, Lim strut stuff in AAGC’s artistic swimming event

CAPAS, Tarlac – Antonia Lucia Raffaele and Zoe Lim, both neophytes in an Asian level competition, showed classy acts that wowed a small Filipino crowd here, but their performances in artistic swimming were overwhelmed by rivals from traditional superpowers in the 11th Asian Age Group championships at the New Clark Aquatics Center on Monday night.

The 13-year-old Antonia, a student at St. Scholastica’s Academy in Bacolod City, gracefully finished her routine under Sinatra’s “New York, New York”. Still, the technical judge’s standard proved too high for the young Filipina as she scored 114.8200 to finish 12th among 14 participants in the girls’ 13-15 class solo free.

Kazakhstan’s Jamanchaluva Dayana edged out Dai Ya of China by a hairline as she scored 233.5386 against her rival (233.1047) to clinch the gold medal. Uzbekistan’s Makhmudova Sabina got the bronze with a score of 200.5405.

“It’s a great experience. Participating in this kind of high-level competition is already an achievement that’s why I expressed my gratitude to coach Giella and to the Philippine Aquatics, Inc. (PAI),” said Antonia.

Her friend and longtime swimming companion Lim, who performed ahead of her in the girls' 12-under class, was lovely on her routine off the “Mambo Italiano” tune. But her best is good only for 11th place (99.0298) in the event dominated by Chinese Xing Yutong with a score of 200.0355.

Kasatkina Elizaveta of Uzbekistan got the silver medal at 196.6779 while Singaporean Lim Isabella Jia Yi took the bronze at 194.4735.

“I’ll just try my best and enjoy these chances of competing against the best in Asia,” stressed Zoe, a 12-year-old Grade schooler at the St. John’s Institute.

Artistic swimming coach Giella Sanchez said she is very proud of Zoe and Antonia's performances, despite the lack of experience and training, particularly exposure to both local and foreign competitions.

“They both started with me when they were 3 years old (in our learn to swim program, WeSwim Aquatics), and they started competing in swimming (competitive) when they were 6 years old. But their artistic swimming training started when they were each nine years old (Zoe) and 10 years old (Antonia). Antonia joined the Singapore Invitational Artistic Swimming Championships back in 2019, and both did several online/virtual artistic swim competitions during the pandemic,” said Sanchez.

Sanchez admitted that artistic swimming is still foreign in the country, but she remained hopeful the situation might change with the exposure they got and the new grassroots program presented by the new leadership in swimming — the Philippine Aquatics Inc. headed by president Miko Vargas and secretary-general two-time swimming Olympian Eric Buhain.

“The best is yet to come for Philippine artistic swimming,” added Sanchez, who runs an artistic swimming academy in Bacolod City.