Who is Kayla Sanchez, Philippines’ star swimmer in 2025 SEA Games?

Kayla Sanchez emerged as one of the Philippines’ top achievers at the 2025 Southeast Asian Games in Thailand, bringing home three gold medals and five silver medals.

At the SEA Games, Sanchez won the following:

Gold medals:

4x100m freestyle relay (with Heather White, Chloe Isleta, and Xiandi Chua)

100m backstroke

100m freestyle

Silver medals:

200m freestyle

50m backstroke

50m freestyle

4x100m medley relay (with Heather White, Miranda Renner, and Xiandi Chua)

4x200m freestyle relay (with Heather White, Chloe Isleta, and Xiandi Chua)

Winning, however, is nothing new for Sanchez.

Before switching federations to the Philippines, the 24-year-old represented Canada, where she captured a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in the 4x100m freestyle relay and a bronze medal in the 4x100m medley relay.

She is also a three-time gold medalist at the 2021 Short Course World Championships and a three-time gold medalist at the 2017 World Junior Championships.

In 2023, her move to represent the Philippines was approved by World Aquatics. She represented the country a year later in the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she set a new national record in the women's 100m freestyle.

Sanchez is the daughter of overseas Filipino worker (OFW) parents originally from Pampanga and Baguio, who worked in Singapore before eventually moving to Canada.

READ MORE | LIVE UPDATES: Team Philippines at the 2025 SEA Games (December 17, 2025)

—JMB, GMA Integrated News