99th PSL National Series unfolds Sat

THE Philippine Swimming League (PSL) will stage its 99th National Series featuring novice and motivational swimmers seeking entry into international competitions.

The competition will start at 8 a.m. today at the Diliman Preparatory School swimming pool in Quezon City.

PSL President Susan Papa said the event is open to all young swimmers who want to qualify and join the Philippine delegation in international tournaments such as the SSC Midget Meet in Singapore, Tokyo Invitational Swimming Championship in Japan and the Royal Bangkok Swimming Championship in Thailand.

“The Novice and Motivational tournament is part of the PSL’s grassroots development program. We have a lot of good swimmers right now who started in this competition. We are selecting talented young swimmers then guide them for future international competitions,” said Papa in an interview.

Veteran international campaigners Kyla Soguilon, Micaela Jasmine Mojdeh and Marc Bryan Dula are some of the products of PSL’s Novice and Motivational meets.

Soguilon, a back-to-back Philippine Junior Athlete of the Year awardee, bagged the Female Most Outstanding Swimmer in the 2016 Palarong Pambansa in Bicol and won numerous gold medals in Aus- tralia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand.

Dula and Mojdeh both won the MOS awards in the 2016 Indian Ocean All-Star Challenge in Perth and the 2016 Tokyo Winter Swimming Championship in Japan. They also copped the Most Promising Swimmer plums in the PSL Annual Awards Night.

“We’re hoping to discover more talented swimmers like them. We have a lot of talented swimmers here in the country. We just need to provide them with proper training programs,” added Papa.

Gold medals are up for grabs in the 25m butterfly, 25m backstroke, 25m breaststroke and 25m freestyle in the Novice Division, and 100m Individual Medley, 50m butterfly, 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke and 50m freestyle in the Motivational Category.

The Most Outstanding Swimmers in each age band will be awarded with trophy while the team with the most number of points earned after the competition will be declared as the overall champion.

PSL is a national sports swimming association for universities and colleges accredited by the Federation of School Sports Association of the Philippines - the internationally affiliated member of Federation of International Sports University. proceeding to Baku, Azerbaijan to lead the US Chess Federation team in the prestigious 2016 World Chess Olympiad on September 1 to 14.

He recently placed third overall in the 9th Bilbao Chess Masters Final in Bilbao, Spain.