Vissa tankers finish 7th in HK swimfest

TANKERS of the Visayas Integrated Schools Swimming Association (Vissa) finished their campaign in the HSBC Insurance Stingrays Invitational in Hong Kong with two gold medals, five silvers and eight bronze medals over the weekend.

Their accomplishments allowed the Vissa Swimming Team Philippines to finish seventh overall among 15 competitors after accumulating a total of 140 points.

Top three finishers in this international tilt were Hong Kong Island Stingrays with 977, Giant Whale Swim Team with 352.50 points and San Beda College with 177 points.

University of San Carlos’ (USC) Loren Dale Echavez made up for her failure to compete in more events by fishing a gold in the 15 and over 50-meter freestyle.

Echavez missed all except two events in her category as she only caught up with the competition on Sunday after a delay in the release of her passport allowed her to leave for Hong Kong only on Saturday night.

Echavez also anchored Vissa’s girls 200m freestyle relay team to a silver finish. Other members of the team were Echavez’s younger sister Ara Denise, Bianca Diaz and Rozelle Diaz. All are from USC.

The other gold medal was contributed by Ray Lister Tungala also of USC in the 15 and over 200m butterfly.

The rest of the silver medals were accumulated by Bacolod’s Jocelyn Roi Cho in the 8 and under 100m freestyle; Rozelle Diaz in the 15 and over 200m butterfly; and Cynthjune Goden (USC) in the 15 and over 200m and 100m breaststroke.

Ara Denise Echavez also notched three bronze medals via the 15 and over 100m and 50m breaststroke and 50m freestyle.

Cho and Goden also added a bronze to their medal tally via the 8 and under 50m butterfly and 15 and over 200m individual medley (IM) and 200m backstroke, respectively.

Other bronze medalists were Bacolod’s Jaenz Jereza in the 11-12 years old 100m breaststroke and University of Bohol’s (UB) Rian Marco Tirol in the 9-10 years old 50m breaststroke.

Nine Vissa tankers were also awarded with ribbons for entering the top 7 in their respective events. They were Ara Denise Echavez, Diaz, Tungala, April Goden, Kyle Lorenzo Nemil, Jereza, Cho, Joshua Christian Jesswani and Cynthjune Goden. /CORRESPONDENT MARS G. ALISON