Molina shatters 3 RP swim records in Japan meet

MANILA, Philippines - Miguel Molina, the best male athlete of the 2007 Southeast Asian Games, proved he’s still a force to reckon with on the pool within the region. The Filipino tanker rewrote three new national records in the recently concluded Japan Swimming Championships in Hamamatsu, Japan. The 2007 PSA Athlete of the Year awardee reset the 200-meter breaststroke record with a time of 2:14.21, erasing his old mark of 2:15.62 he set in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The 24-year-old Molina also posted a new 200-meter individual medley mark with a clocking of 2:00.54 to surpass his old time of 2:01.61 while posting a new 400-meter individual medley mark of 4:19.75 to break his old time of 4:23.20. Up next for the former University of California-Berkeley standout is the 13th FINA World Championships slated in July in Rome, Italy. Molina won four gold medals in the 24th edition of the SEA Games held in Thailand two years ago on his way to being named the most dominant athlete of the biennial meet – the first Filipino to win the award since fellow swimmer Eric Buhain in 1991. He is expected to lead the country’s campaign in this year’s SEA Games set in Laos this December. -GMANews.TV