Gary Bejino faltered at the tail-end of his heat and finished 13th out of 13 swimmers in the men’s 400-meter freestyle S6 preliminary heats of the 2020 Paralympic Games swimming competition at the Tokyo Aquatics Center, Thursday.
It was a close race between the Games rookie and Switzerland’s Leo McCrea, but gassed out at the final 50 meters to touch the wall with 5:52.48, way below his entry time and personal best of 5:33.47.
Bejino is one of the fastest off the blocks, only he was fifth to take the opposite wall at 38.48 seconds, just 0.17 seconds ahead of the Swiss swimmer. Brazil’s Talisson Glock was ahead of the pack with a very fast first leg of 34.33 seconds.
McCrea then took over the 25-year-old Filipino at the return with a 1:21.17, ahead of the latter’s 1:21.78. Nonetheless, Bejino kept it close throughout the race before the final return saw him fading out into a very slow 52-second leg.
Glock eventually topped the heats with 5:06.28, ahead of RPC’s Viacheslav Lenskii’s 5:11.07. Both Glock and Lenskii came from Bejino’s heat.
Bejino will take the pool on his final event on Friday when he competes at the heats of the men’s 100-meter backstroke at 8:23 a.m., Manila time.
