Bejino fails to advance to 400m freestyle finals

FILIPINO para-swimmer faltered in his penultimate event at the ongoing Paralympic Games, failing to advance to the finals of the 400m freestyle S6 event at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Thursday.

Mr. Bejino, 25, finished with a time of five minutes and 52.28 seconds in the preliminary heats, last among the swimmers who saw action. Only the top eight swimmers in the preliminaries got to advance to the finals set for later in the day.

The struggle continued for the first-time Paralympian, who also fell short to swim past the preliminaries of the men’s 200m individual medley SM6 event on Aug. 26 and 50m butterfly on Aug. 30.

Mr. Bejino has one more chance to advance to the medal race when he competes in the 100m backstroke, Friday morning.

“He (Bejino) was not happy with his performance and will go hard and try to improve in the 100-meter backstroke tomorrow,” said para-swimming coach Tony Ong.

Also competing on Friday is wheelchair racer Jerrold Mangliwan in the finals of the men’s 100m T52 event at the Olympic Stadium.

Meanwhile, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has denied another Filipino para-athlete the chance to compete in the ongoing Games as taekwondo jin Allain Ganapin tested positive for the virus. The Philippine Paralympic Committee made the announcement in a statement on Thursday.

Mr. Ganapin, 23, tested positive here in Manila and was not able to leave for Japan. He was supposed to compete in the men’s -75kg K44 event on Friday. He was the third Filipino para-athlete who tested positive after para-powerlifter Achelle Guion and blind discus-thrower Jeanette Aceveda. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo