The 2024 Junior Olympic Championship recently took place in Gresham, Oregon, USA at the Mt. Hood Community College Aquatics Center from July 3-6.
Organized by USA Artistic Swimming, it was the biggest national event of the competitive season with over 970 athletes representing 71 different Artistic Swimming Clubs across 22 different states in the United States.
Among those who competed and swam for the Meraquas of Irvine Artistic Swimming Team, based in Irvine, California was 16-year-old Bacoleña Carmina Sanchez Tan, a former member of the Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club (NOGCC) Swimming Team in Bacolod City.
Tan competed in three events: the 15-17 Women Solo Free, the 15-17 Women Duet Free and the 15-17 Women Team Free.
Under the mentorship of Head Coach Candy Hipp, she finished with a final score of 164.0833 in her Solo Free debut and placed 6th overall among 26 finalists.
Together with her duet partner, Karen Cho, Carmina won the Gold Medal, and they emerged as the National Champions in the 15-17 Women Duet Free with a score of 181.3542, edging the team from Texas by 1.0709 points.
Carmina, together with 5 other swimmers from the Meraquas of Irvine, competed in the 15-17 Women Team Free where they also won the Gold Medal and emerged as National Champions. Their finishing total score of 223.0752 was more than 10 points ahead of their nearest competitor from Ohio.
Leading up to the 2024 Junior Olympic Championship, Carmina had to go through a series of qualifying competitions where only the top 2 swimmers advance and can qualify for the National Championships. Among her qualifying competitions were the Junior Olympic Associations and the Junior Olympic Regionals where she competed with swimmers from within Southern California. She won Gold Medals in all her 3 events, Solo Free, Duet Free and Team Free.
She also swam for the Meraquas of Irvine in the West Zone Championship in Mesa, Arizona and the Junior and National Artistic Swimming Championships in Houston, Texas in March and April, respectively.
Carmina trains four times weekly with the Meraquas of Irvine and has been a member of the team since July 2023. Prior to joining Meraquas, she was training in Bacolod City virtually, under Coach Leilani Torres, an Artistic Swimming Olympian from Puerto Rico based in Chile for three years. Despite the distance and the time difference, together with her mother, Giselle Sanchez Tan, they credit her former coach for helping and molding her to what she is today.*
