BORN on October 8, 1974, Filipina swimmer Akiko Thomson-Guevara serves as the most accomplished Filipina swimmer in the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games with a record of eight gold medals during her playing career.
At the young age of six, Akiko Thomson-Guevara already took to swimming as it was a form of leisure at the time since their family home in Paco, Manila was just beside the Army Navy Club.
By the age of 10, Akiko was already invited to join the Philippine National team. Her first international age group competition was in Bangkok. She was 12 years old then.
After Bangkok, Akiko wound up being the most accomplished Filipina swimmer at the Southeast Asian Games. Not long after her debut in the international sporting stage, Akiko represented the country at her first SEA Games in 1987, where she brought home the 100-meter backstroke gold and the silver in the 200-meter backstroke.
Not long after her impressive showing at the SEA Games, she bannered the country’s flag at the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics at the age of 14. She placed 30th in the 50 meters women’s freestyle, 39th in the 100 meters freestyle, and 28th in the 100 meters women’s backstroke event.
She would later on represent the country in the next two succeeding editions in 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics in Spain and United States, respectively.
Akiko went back to banner the country’s tri-colors at the 1991 SEA Games held in Manila where she had yet again prevailed and made the country proud. She toppled the rest of the country bets when she brought home the gold in the 100 meters backstroke, 200 meters backstroke and the silver in the 50-meter freestyle and 100-meter freestyle events.
She later replicated the same results in the 1993 Singapore SEA Games, defending her title in the 100-meter backstroke event and in the 200-meter backstroke event.
After achieving so much as a swimmer athlete, Akiko had decided to retire from her sporting days as one, but this did not stop her in pursuing sports development behind the scenes.
She became a commissioner of the Philippine Sports Commission for eight years from 2009 to 2016. And to top it off, she is currently the president of the Philippine Olympians Association way back 2015.
