In observance of the Holy Week, the Philippine News Agency’s online news service will be off on March 29, Good Friday, and March 30, Black Saturday. Normal operations will resume on March 31, Easter Sunday.

— The Editors

PH swimmer fails Covid-19 test in Hanoi SEA Games

MANILA – Filipino-Australian swimmer Luke Michael Gebbie failed his reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test at the 31st Southeast Asian Games (SEAG) in Hanoi, Vietnam, according to a news release on Saturday.

The Tokyo Olympian owns the national records in 50-meter freestyle (22.57 seconds), where he snared bronze, and 50-meter butterfly (24.34 seconds), both set in the 2019 SEAG in Tarlac.

He was also part of the silver-medal finish of the men's 4x100 meters freestyle relay team in the 2019 edition.

Three other Filipino athletes in kickboxing initially tested positive for the Covid-19 but were cleared after a retest early last week.

“Too bad he tested positive,” Philippine Olympic Committee President, Rep. Abraham Tolentino, said. “That’s one less medal -- a potential gold at that.”

The 15-member aquatics team will start competitions on Sunday with Filipino-American Ariana Drake in the diving event.

The 17-year-old Drake is entered in the the women’s 1-meter springboard at 9 a.m. Her other event after two days is the 3-meter springboard.

Also on Sunday, the men’s football team will face the host nation at 8 p.m., following its 4-0 blanking of Timor Leste on Friday.

The kickboxing team, which contributed three gold, two silver, and one bronze medals in 2019, will likewise kick off its bid in the biennial meet that will have its official opening ceremony on May 12.

The Philippine Sports Commission shelled out PHP232 million to fund the participation of the 908-strong Team PH delegation, including 641 athletes battling in 38 of 40 sports.

There are no Filipino entries in petanque and Chinese/elephant chess (xianggi).

The SEAG was supposed to be held in November and December last year but was reset due to a surge in Covid-19 cases. (PR)

Comments