Olympians infuse life into Filipinos’ SEAG campaign
PHNOM PENH— Tokyo Olympians Carlo Paalam and Nesthy Petecio of boxing, and weightlifting’s Elreen Ando led the charge of the cavalry, infusing life into the Philippines’ sagging campaign with the team’s biggest daylong haul of nine golds in the 32nd Southeast Asian Games here on Sunday.
Olympic silver medalists Paalam and Petecio led a 3-of-5 golden finish by the Filipino boxers, while Ando smashed three records on the way to the -59kg weightlifting gold to help the Philippines surge past Singapore at fifth place in the medal standings.
Their wins, to go with the victory of light welterweight boxer Paul Bascon, the two golds in arnis, plus triumphs in judo, esports and wrestling handed the Filipinos a total harvest of 46 golds to Singapore’s 42 as of 8 p.m.
Paalam, who bagged a silver while fighting in the flyweight class in Tokyo, dominated Aldoms Suguro of Indonesia to rule the men’s bantamweight class, while Petecio was simply too much against her Indonesian rival Ratna Sari Devi in the women’s featherweight division.
Bascon scored a split decision over Rujakran Juntrong of Thailand as the Filipinos wrapped up their campaign with four gold medals, counting featherweight Ian Clark Bautista’s win last Saturday.
The 24-year-old Ando started the Philippines’ gold rush by smashing records in the the -59kg with her total of 216 kgs, the clean and jerk with her 118 kgs, and the snatch at 98 kgs, with judoka Rena Furukawa following suit by retaining her under 57kg women’s tiara.
Esports delivered its second gold through the Sibol men’s team that swept Malaysia 3-0 in the finale of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang event and wrestler Jason Balabal topped the 82kg class.
Charlotte Ann Tolentino and Jedah Mae Soriano delivered the first two of an expected avalanche of gold in arnis, ruling the women’s full contact padded stick finals in the bantamweight and lightweight events, respectively.
Matching the country’s fourth place finish last year in Vietnam, however, seemed an impossible task considering Indonesia and Cambodia have cracked the 60-gold mark.
Vietnam was on its way to taking the overall crown anew by nearing the 100gold mark, with Thailand sure of taking at least second before it hosts the next edition of the games in 2025.