Asiad performance shot in the arm for women athletes

FILIPINO gold medal winners at the 18th Asian Games in Indonesia came home to a hero’s welcome on Tuesday night, met by local sports officials at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport celebrating and hailing their achievements.

Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz and golfer Yuka Saso and the Philippine women’s golf team all expressed pride and happiness to have been able to pull through amid what has been a tough campaign for the Philippines in the quadrennial continental sporting event even as they said their gold medals were a testament to what women athletes can do and, thus, should be accorded the proper attention as well.

Ms. Diaz was the first to hand the Philippines its gold medal in the Indonesia Asiad on Aug. 21, coming from behind to snatch the top spot in the women’s 53 kg weightlifting event.

Ms. Saso followed up on Ms. Diaz’s golden performance by outdueling her competitors in the women’s gold competition while also helping the Philippine team, along with Bianca Pagdanganan and Louis Kay Go, to notch the team championship gold.

For Ms. Diaz, a silver medallist in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil, their gold conquests speak a lot of what Filipino women athletes like them can do and should go a long way in communicating such.

“All of us gold medal winners are women, and then most of the bronze medals won by the Philippines were by women. It goes a lot in communicating what women in sports can do,” said Ms. Diaz upon their arrival from Indonesia.

“Filipino women did well in the Asian Games and we were able to show that we can compete with the best from other countries. We have gone far from the days where we were deem not fit to compete in sports and that we just have to stay at home. With our performance we showed we, too, belong in sports. That should be the case and we should be proud to be women,” she added.

Other women who bagged medals, all bronze, for the Philippines in the ongoing Jakarta Palembang Games were the women’s taekwondo poomsae team of Juvenile Faye Crisostomo, Rinna Babanto and Janna Dominique Oliva, wushu’s Agatha Wong in the women’s taijiquan and taijijian all-around event, taekwondo jin Pauline Lopez in the -57kg event, wushu’s Divine Wally in the -52kg sanda event, jiu-jitsu’s Meggie Ochoa in the women’s 49kg event, Ms. Pagdanganan in golf, Cherry Mae Regalado in pencak silat, and Junna Tsukii in karate.

For winning gold medals, Misses Diaz and Saso and the Philippine golf team stand to receive P6 million for their efforts — P2 million from the Philippine Olympic Committee, P2 million from the government through Republic Act 10699, which expands the coverage of incentives granted to national athletes and coaches, and P1 million each from the Siklab Foundation and the Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia Lee Hoong.

ZEROING IN ON FIFTH Meanwhile, the Philippine men’s basketball team moved a step closer in salvaging a fifth-place finish in the Games after routing Japan, 113-80, at the start of consolation play on Tuesday.

Eliminated from medal contention after losing to South Korea, 91-82, in the quarterfinals on Monday, the Philippine Basketball Association-backed team moved a step closer to improving on the Philippines’ seventh-place finish in the 2014 Asian Games.

“We are assured of sixth place. But we still have to play one game against [Syria]. We want to finish our campaign here (with a win), even if we don’t have a medal,” said national team coach Yeng Guiao.

Filipino-German Christian Standhardinger led the Philippines with 27 points and 13 rebounds against Japan while FilipinoAmerican National Basketball Association player Jordan Clarkson had 22 markers and nine assists.

The team battles Syria for fifth place on Friday.

As of 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the Philippines was at 16th place with four gold and 13 bronze medals. Looking to add to the haul were athletes from athletics, boxing, skateboarding and volleyball.