Jessie King Lacuna, fine-tuning for this year’s Youth Olympic Games, captured a bronze medal in the tough New South Wales Age Group Championships at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatics Centre in Australia.

Lacuna, 16, clocked 52.51 seconds in the boys 16 years old division’s 100m freestyle to surpass his Youth Olympic qualifying performance of 53.47 seconds at the Asian Indoor Games last July.

The Youth Games qualifying B time is 53.50 seconds.

Lacuna finished behind gold medalist Matthew Roberts, who timed 51.83sec, and silver winner Michael Fell, who recorded 52.55 seconds.

The tournament, which drew 20,000 swimmers mostly from different Swim Clubs in Australia, served as one of the qualifying events for the Youth Olympics in Singapore this August.

Lacuna and four other Youth Games qualifiers – Jasmine Alkhaldi, Banjo Borja, Dorothy Jong and Jose Gonzalez – left for Sydney last December 31 to undergo a 10-week training at the New South Wales Institute of Sports (NSWIS) under top Australian coach Jim Fowlie.

NSWIS is one of training grounds of top Australian swimmers, including Ian Thorpe, who won five Olympic gold medals for his country.