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After one year of competitive swimming, Jasmine Alkhaldi , who was then six-years-old, walked up to her coach, demanding to know the highest achievement possible in the sport. She needed a goal. “It’s crazy how I remember it to this day,” she muses.

Coach gave her the general outline: make the national team, win international games, and, then, qualify for the Olympics. “I knew it in my heart, which was so weird. I just said, okay.



I’m gonna go to the Olympics. Then I smiled, and I walked away.” From then on, her goals were set.

She jokes that the little girl was not, in fact, prepared for what was up ahead. But well over two decades later, Alkhaldi achieved all that she sought out to do. “One thing about me is I don’t know how to quit,” the 30-year-old laughs.

A two-time Olympian , 29-time SEA Games medalist, and holder of several Philippine women’s swimming records, the veteran swimmer doesn’t carry these titles lightly. “At the end of the day, it’s more than medals. It’s [about] how you present yourself.

” This, she knows by heart. In the 2013 Southeast Asian Games, Alkhaldi recalls being stripped of what was supposed to be her first gold medal for the Philippines at the wake of a technical mistake. An extra sound at the start of the race reportedly resulted in a false start for a number of the competitors.

Eyes puffy from the night before and stubborn against all advice, she was determined to show up for the re-match. “They told me not to go .

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