A fun fact unknown to most is that babies are natural swimmers. Thus, the phenomenon coined as “infant swimming”, where newborns have the ability to control their breathing and navigate while under water is innate in everyone. However, as people hit their pre-teen years, most mystically lose that natural ability to swim.
For Arian Neil Puyo (II-SPM), swimming continued and remained in him ever since. As a daring two-year-old, he jumped on the pool while one of his siblings caught the first glimpse of what was to be the beginning of a swimming career.
Making waves in the UAAP
Years later, Puyo would be recruited by DLSU from St. Bridget College in the province of Batangas. He immediately made waves in his rookie year in last season’s UAAP Swimming Championships.
Among the individual awards he has earned, the Green Tanker emerged as the Rookie of the Year. He outpaced his contemporaries with 71 points, highlighted by six podium finishes, including one gold medal in the 200m Backstroke. Aside from this, Puyo impressed the rest of the UAAP community with podium finishes at the 50m and 100m Backstroke, 400m Individual Medley, and 200m Butterfly events.
Despite his individual brilliance however, Puyo and the rest of the DLSU Green Tankers would fall short of a championship. They would settle for a first-runner up finish as the powerhouse ADMU Blue Eagles captured their second consecutive championship.
As the reigning Rookie of the Year, Puyo was able to garner numerous medals in his recent appearance at the UAAP Season 79 Swimming Championships. Puyo participated in a record breaking relay with his fellow team mates, namely Alfonso Bautista, Leon Silvestre, and Juan Miguel Narciso. The relay team bagged a silver medal in the Men’s 4x50m medley relay, while they established a new record in the process, alongside the Blue Eagles who finished first. In addition, the Green Tanker clinched medals in his individual events. He took the gold medal in the Men’s 100m backstroke, silver in the 50m backstroke and bronze in the 200m backstroke and butterfly events.
Despite the slew of medals Puyo achieved in the recent championships, when asked about the comparison of his performance in his two UAAP appearances, the swimmer shared, “This season was bad because a month before [the competition], I got dengue. My performance got ruined.”
Camaraderie in and out of the pool
Only in his second year in the team, Puyo has already a tightly knit relationship with his fellow teammates. Swimmers often look up to Michael Phelps but for Neil Puyo, he looks and thinks highly of his seniors. He admires outgoing team captain Vince Raymundo saying, “He balances both, swimming and acads, and he still trains hard everyday.” The Green Tanker admits that the departure of Raymundo will not be an easy one, “It’s very hard. [He was my] captain for 2 years. He was also my first captain.”
Regardless of the team captain’s absence the team will remain close in and out of the pool. Puyo shares that he hangs out with all of his teammates whether in training or just simply relaxing. “Just playing with the team mates, like computer games and the others.” As he is now in the offseason, Puyo plans to get back on track with his academics and social life. Although training schedules are on hold at the moment, the swimmer assured us that he will soon get back to work after their days off. He states, “This year, no swim, just dry lands and some other workouts that are not swim like other sports.”
Break from swimming and off-season preparations
With the recent conclusion of their UAAP campaign, Puyo and the team are taking a break from the sport to focus on their student life. Just as any regular student must meet their academic demands as well as having a social life, Puyo relishes his time away from competition to relax. However, as any varsity team would do in the off-season, the team would still maintain their regular workouts.
With the distance still a long way for him despite already achieving beyond what most student athletes would hope for, make no mistake that Puyo will continue to deliver for the Lasallian community with every stroke.
