A Filipino-Canadian will anchor the fight for Filipino swimmers at the Asian Games, which opened today in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. Kayla Sanchez, 25, headlines the Philippine swim contingent, and this time it isn't just hope carrying that label — Philippine sports officials have named her among the country's potential gold medalists, backed by a season that included a Philippine record of 53.46 seconds in the women's 100m freestyle at the Pan Pacific Championships, a time that beat China's Cheng Yujie in both the 100m and 50m freestyle.
Sanchez was born in Singapore to Filipino parents Noel Sison Sanchez and Susana Pramoso, and moved to Canada at age two, growing up in Scarborough and Toronto. She came up through Swimming Canada and reached the top of the sport with the national team, winning silver in the women's 4x100m freestyle relay and bronze in the 4x100m medley relay at the Tokyo Olympics. In July 2022, Swimming Canada announced she would seek to compete for the Philippines instead, her parents' home country, and World Aquatics cleared the switch starting July 2023. Sanchez has said the decision was a difficult one after everything she'd built in Canada, but that she wanted the chance to represent the Philippines — a heritage her father had long dreamed of seeing her compete for on the international stage.
That dream played out almost immediately. At her SEA Games debut, Sanchez won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay, the 100m freestyle, and the 100m backstroke — her first golds for the Philippines at a major multi-sport meet. She built on that at last year's Southeast Asian Games in Thailand, where she collected three gold and five silver medals, the biggest individual haul of any Filipino swimmer at the Games.
Now Sanchez takes that momentum into tougher waters. China and Japan remain the teams to beat at the Asian Games, and the Philippines hasn't won a swimming medal at the meet in nearly three decades. But with her Pan Pacific times putting her firmly in the conversation against the continent's best sprinters, Sanchez has a real chance to end that drought — and to take a step closer to a second Olympic appearance, this time under the Philippine flag.
