Tokyo Olympian Kayla Sanchez, who announced her decision to compete for the Philippines after being released from Swimming Canada, has lifetime best times that would already break 18 Filipino national records.
She specializes in sprint freestyle and backstroke which made her a critical part of Canada’s relays during her six years on their national team. She swam on two of their medal-winning relays at the Tokyo Olympics and she holds a total of eight Canadian relay national records (across short course and long course meters.) Five of those relay records were set at the 2021 World Short Course Championships in Abu Dhabi.
Sanchez’s lifetime best 50 free, 100 free, 200 free, 100 back, 200 back, and 200 IM times surpass the Filipino national records in both short course and long course meters. She is most dominant in short course meters where her fastest times would lower nine records by significant margins. There, her best times undercut the Filipino national record by seven seconds in the 100 IM, 14 seconds in the 200 IM, and eight seconds in the 200 free:
Long Course Meters
| Event | Sanchez | Filipino National Record |
| 50 free | 24.68 | 25.48 – Jasmine Al-Khaldi (2019) |
| 100 free | 53.12 | 55.71 – Remedy Rule (2020) |
| 200 free | 1:57.23 | 2:00.35 – Remedy Rule (2020) |
| 50 back | 28.13 | 29.35 – Jessica Geriane (2022) |
| 100 back | 59.78 | 1:03.21 – Chloe Isleta (2021) |
| 200 back | 2:15.86 | 2:16.33 – Georgia Peregrina (2018) |
| 200 IM | 2:12.64 | 2:18.39 – Chloe Isleta (2015) |
Short Course Meters
| Event | Sanchez | Filipino National Record |
| 50 free | 23.71 | 25.51 – Jasmine Al-Khaldi (2019) |
| 100 free | 51.45 | 55.38 – Jasmine Al-Khaldi (2018) |
| 200 free | 1:52.59 | 2:01.07 – Jasmine Al-Khaldi (2018) |
| 800 free | 9:00.26 | 9:01.90 – Rosalee Santa Ana (2018) |
| 50 back | 26.36 | 27.62 – Chloe Isleta (2021) |
| 100 back | 58.12 | 1:00.42 – Chloe Isleta (2021) |
| 200 back | 2:08.32 | 2:14.72 – Roxanne Ashley Yu (2014) |
| 100 IM | 57.8 | 1:04.82 – Hannah Dato (2014) |
| 200 IM | 2:04.64 | 2:19.10 – Hannah Dato (2013) |
She is set to break a couple of freestyle records set by Remedy Rule, the Philippines’ highest-placing finisher at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She finished 15th in the women’s 200 fly. Rule’s butterfly records, however, are safe from Sanchez. Jasmine Al-Khaldi currently holds the most records that Sanchez’s best times beat – four sprint freestyle national records that she set in 2018 and 2019. The oldest Filipino record that Sanchez’s best times threaten is from 2013 when Hannah Dato set the 200 IM record in short course at the FINA World Cup.
Note that this list only consists of individual events and doesn’t include Sanchez’s potential relay swims, which were her strong suit with Canada. Sanchez currently holds three individual Canadian national records, in short course meters: the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 IM.
She probably got tired of having to sacrifice her individual races for the relay.
I’m wondering what is her real reason?
Has there ever been a swimmer before who walked out on her country and teammates to swim for a country she wasn’t born in…or even visited?
Santo Condorelli.
Well first it seems she has visited or even lived their when she was younger, and her parents are Filipino.
Next, ‘walked out’… Pending if you choose to word it that way. Sydney Pickrem was born and raised in Florida i believe, but chose to rep Canada as her parents are Canadian and resided in Nova Scotia.
Taylor Ruck was born in Kelowna but moved to Arizona as a toddler and grew up swimming there.
Missy Franklin had one US and one Canadian parent, choosing to swim for us as she lived in Colorado.
She was born in the Philippines.
No, she was born in Singapore.
I feel kind of sorry for Filipino ladies :-(. Is it really fair to come and clear the board of records after having access to one of the best training facilities in the world, while those Filipino ladies had nothing similar to that?
How will Canadian swimming handle her if she goes through with this switch? Will she be barred from training at certain facilities in Canada or with certain athletes, or is Canada pretty laid back about allowing foreign swimmers to train in their national program as guests?
It’s not clear to me that Canada has had to answer this question all that much. Remember that Swimming Canada is partially funded by the Canadian government, and Kayla is still a Canadian citizen. I think historically, most international swimmers who wanted to train “abroad” in North America would either 1) have dual citizenship, or 2) wind up in the American collegiate system.
George Bovell maybe trained there, but he was born in Canada and was a dual citizen, I believe.
I wouldn’t guess that they’d let a foreign swimmer into Mallett’s group at TPASC, for example. But I don’t think they’d be able to block one from competing out of the UBC elite group, for example.
Given how many… Read more »
She is a Canadian citizen you can’t deny access.
Most of those records are actually from Filipino athletes raised outside of the country (mostly USA). So relatively, they were fruits of competitive training facilities.
I don’t think these ladies would mind. It could be a spark of something new to be honest. They could recruit more now that they have an elite swimmer in the team.
Jasmine Alkhaldi – trained at Hawaii
Remedy Rule – trained at Texas, raised in Virginia
Nicole Oliva – raised in California
Chloe Isleta – trained at Arizona State, raised in California
Georgia Peregrina – raised in Australia
Desirae Mangoang – trained at Texas A&M, raised in NC
Jessica Geriane – raised in Illinois, trained at Notre Dame
So, the only one who I can’t confirm was trained abroad in a world class training environment is Thanya Dela Cruz. I believe she was trained at home in the Philippines.
At any rate, Kayla is going to have to live there at least for a little bit. Maybe some success by her can stimulate the local industry a bit.
Could this help them get a relay to Top 12/16 at Worlds for a chance to qualify a relay for the Olympics?
I mean, given where their national records are and absolutely no other info, I’d wanna guess no. (55.71 as the best-ever lcm 100 fr doesn’t seem like it’d cut it unless they somehow have a bunch of other swimmers in the 56s right now.)
Honestly, I’m just sorta happy this makes Canada slightly less good at swimming.
Can’t have all these dang Commonwealth Countries being good at swimming now can we.
You do crack me up sometimes
They need to give us Taylor Ruck back.
To my knowledge Taylor never became a US citizen.
All of her Long Course best times would have won Gold medals in the recently concluded South East Asian games.
She doesn’t need to be at her best in some and would still get Gold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2021_Southeast_Asian_Games
Event – winning time (Kayla’s best)
50fr – 25.12 (24.68)
100fr – 55.6 (53.12)
200fr – 2:02.06 (1.57.23)
50bk – 29.21 (28.13)
100bk – 1:03.36 (59.78)
200bk – 2:18.6 (2:15.86)
200im – 2:15.98 (2:12.64)