Five months since his last visit to the country, renowned swimming coach Luka Gabrilo is back in town to personally oversee the training and progress of Paris Olympics hopeful Kayla Sanchez.
Gabrilo shared, “I’m very happy to be back in the Philippines. It is a great opportunity that PSI continues the work it started at the beginning of the season.
“My main priorities in this trip are first to check the status of Kayla after two months, and secondly, to keep training towards the summer’s goals.”
But Gabrilo, together with Olympic swimmer Barbora Seemanova, and world-class physiotherapist Jan Herber, is not here only for the training of Sanchez. Part of his mission is to continue his mentorship of local coaches and swimmers as he did on his last trip to Manila.
“At the same time it will be very interesting to continue the coaches mentoring and education program of PSI with more lectures, while also giving opportunities for the local swimmers to join some sessions and to learn from our world-class swimmers,” he added.
The return of Gabrilo and his high-performance team is upon the initiative and continuous efforts of the Philippine Swimming Inc. (PSI), the country’s governing body for aquatics, and its Board of Trustees, who advanced all expenses for the trip while the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) reviews their budget request.
PSI also plans to bring Gabrilo and his team to key swimming hotspots like Davao, Bacolod, Palawan, and Dagupan in their three-week stay to give more opportunities for local and grassroots swimmers to learn from and interact with some of the world’s best talents.
Gabrilo acts as PSI’s high-performance consultant for swimming. The appointment was announced in a post last 2022 as part of the NSA’s efforts to build a program leading toward the Paris Olympics in 2024.
