Luke Gebbie breaks national record, but unable to advance to Olympic 100m freestyle semis

Luke Gebbie has wrapped his campaign in the men’s 100m freestyle of Tokyo Olympics swimming competition Tuesday at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.

The Filipino swimmer placed fifth at the end of Heat 5 with a time of 49.64 and was a place higher than Singapore’s top swimmer Joseph Schooling, who was at sixth.

But after all nine heats, Gebbie placed 36th out of a total of 70 swimmers to officially bow out of contention.

Only the top 16 swimmers advance to the semifinals round set for later today.

Despite falling short of a semis seat, Gebbie broke his own national record of 49.94 seconds, which he established back in 2019 in South Korea.

Gebbie won both a silver and bronze medals in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games 4×100 m freestyle relay and 50m freestyle, respectively.

The 24-year-old tanker qualified to the Games just this month after getting the nod of the FINA (Federation Internationale De Natation) through the universality places quota.

—Bea Micaller/JMB, GMA News