Lacson shows the 10 gold medals she harvested in the recent Milo Little Olympics Regional Finals at the Cebu City Aquatics Center.
Swimming proved to be the most productive sport in the recent 21st Milo Little Olympics Visayas Regional Finals in terms of records broken.
With a whopping 15 marks shattered at the Cebu City Aquatics Center including a couple of 20-year old marks, swimming highlighted the weekend meet.
At the forefront of the record-setting binge are two visiting swimmers, both adroitly talented they have been hailed this early as their sport’s most exciting finds.
Kyla Soguilon of Kalibo Sun Yat Sen School and Mary Louise Lacson of the University of Saint La Salle of Bacolod City logged four new swim records each and combined for 20 gold medals in the regional meet.
The 11-year-old Soguilon is no stranger to the country’s swimming limelight as the reigning back-to-back Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Junior Athlete of the Year, the Philippine Swimming League female swimmer of the year and this year’s Palarong Pambansa MVP awardee.
She manhandled the competition by bagging 10 gold medals on top of breaking four Milo Visayas records, among them the 20-year old mark of the iconic Lynette Ang in the elementary girls 50-meter backstroke. Soquilon clocked 33.48 seconds, breaking Ang’s 1996 record of 33.81 seconds.
She also eclipsed three meet records of Cebu’s top swimmer Raven Faith Alcoseba. She bettered Alcoseba’s 2014 Milo meet record of 1:15.46 in the 100m butterfly with a 1:14.40 mark; the 2014 100m backstroke mark of 1:15.30 with a 1:12.19 clocking, and the 100m freestyle record of 1:08.41 with a new time of 1:06.00.
Apart from those records, Soquilon also won golds in the 200m IM, 50m breaststroke, 200m freestyle, 100m breaststroke, 50m butterfly and the 50m freestyle.
The petite Ilonga is not only a dynamo at the pool, she is also a top three student according to her father, Kokoy.
“Even if she is very tired from her academics, she still trains,” said Kokoy, a Provincial Assessor of the Province of Aklan. “I always tell her to train hard, be serious in training and be ready to make sacrifices to make it to the top,” Kokoy who once played baseball in the Palarong Pambansa for Aklan, added.
Kyla Soguilon proudly shows her Milo plaques and a wall filled with medals at her home in Kalibo, Aklan.
(Contributed photo by Kokoy Soguilon)
Kyla also won eight gold medals and became most outstanding swimmer in the Thanyapura Invitational Swim Meet in Thailand in 2015, the same year she claimed six gold medals and the Most Outstanding Swimmer (MOS) award in the 2015 Indian Ocean All Stars Challenge in Perth Australia where she also set four new meet records.
She also won five gold medals and the MOS award in the 11th SICC Invitational Swim Meet in Singapore and hauled four gold medals and the MOS award in the ASIJ Orcas Fall Classic invitational meet.
With her outstanding achievements, it’s no surprise that major schools in Manila are making a beeline to recruit Kyla. But her parents would rather have her represent their province.
Mary Louise Lacson, the sick record breaker
Meanwhile, the 14-year old Lacson was just as impressive, winniing 10 gold medals and breaking four meet records despite a recent bout with flu.
She erased the 2013 record of Karen Mae Indaya in the 200m backstroke by a staggering eight seconds (2:48.12 to 2:40.00). She also eclipsed Christianne Jerez’s 2014 record of 2:27.02 in the 200m freestyle with a 2:22.41 clocking and capped her record-breaking feat by burying the 1996 record of Khawinda Khun in the 100m backstroke of 1:13.24 with a time of 1:12.94. She and her teammates also broke the 2:08:32 record of Saint Scholastica’s Academy of Bacolod City in the 200m freestyle relay with a new time of 2:07.94.
Lacson also topped the 200m IM, 400m freestyle, 400m freestyle relay, 200m medley relay, 400m medley relay and the 100m freestyle.
“I did not expect much in this competition because I was not feeling well when I got here. So it’s a very big surprise for me to win a lot of gold medals,” said Lacson, flashing her contagious smile.