Bianca needs to hang on tough to make it to Paris
BIANCA PAGDANGANAN didn’t make the weekend at the Chevron Championship in e Woodlands in Texas but could still be inside the top 60 of the eligibility list for the Paris Olympics.
Gymnast Emma Malabuyo and trap shooter Hagen Topacio, however, need to overdo themselves as their Paris dreams are hanging on to a thread after two separate qualifiers for the Games that open on July 26.
There are still nine weeks before the cutoff for the golf competitions in Paris with Pagdanganan, who played in Tokyo 2020 alongside Filipinojapanese Yuka Saso, standing at No. 38 pending the revised results that would be out Tuesday after the Ladies Professional Golf Association event in The Woodlands that world No. 1 Nelly Korda dominated.
e 26-year-old Pagdanganan was cut at the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at e Club at Carlton Woods but so did Norway’s Celine Borge, No. 40 on the Olympic list, and No. 42 Maria Fassi of Mexico.
A good number of players on the bottom half of the Olympic list did not see action in the Chevron Championship.
Ranked 131st in the world, Pagdanganan is the only Philippine player on the current list of eligible players for Paris with Dottie Ardina, who also plays on the LPGA and the Epson Tour, on the reallocation reserve list with her No. 316 world ranking.
e final field for women will be announced on June 24 while the men’s roster will be announced a week earlier on June 17.
No Filipino male golfer is on the Paris Olympics men’s roster with Miguel Tabuena on the reallocation reserve list.
Tabuena, who plays on the Asian Tour and the Philippine Golf Tour, is ranked 385th in the world.
Olympic golf will be played at the L’albatros course of Le Golf National in Guyancourt Paris from August 7 to August 10.
Malabuyo faces tough challenge
FOR Emma Malabuyo to become the fourth Filipino gymnast to qualify for Paris, she must win the women’s all-around gold medal at the11th Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships— the last Olympic qualifier set May 24 to 26 in Tashkent.
e 21-year-old Malabuyo’s Paris dream crashed when she missed the floor exercise final of the International Gymnastics Federation World Cup in Doha over the weekend.
But the alternate in the US team in Tokyo 2020 hasn’t given up hope.
“Never say never,” Malabuyo said. “We will see in the future, but I’m very proud to represent the Philippines in other international future competitions.”
“ere’s still the Asian Championships in Uzbekistan,” she added.
Topacio hard-pressed to bag silver
HAGEN TOPACIO couldn’t sustain his form at the International Shooting Sports Federation Final Olympic Trap Qualification
in Doha on Monday and saw his path to Paris transform into an eye of a needle.
“Hagen must make the finals and there, he must bag a silver in order for him to qualify for Paris,” Philippine National Shooting Association secretary-general Iryne Garcia told BM on Monday.
After grabbing the No. 1 spot with 50 points in the first two rounds on Sunday, Topacio could only hit 21 points for 71 points and fell to No. 36 in the 140-shooter after on Monday with only two rounds left for him to recover.
e other chance for Topacio to make it to Paris, according to Garcia, is through reallocation, the path that gave Jayson Valdez his ticket to Tokyo three years ago.
Olympic golf slots allocation
THE 60-player men’s field and the 60 competitors in the women’s division will be based on the Olympic Golf Rankings, which is derived from the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, with limitations.
e top 15 players in the world rankings qualify for the Paris Olympics. However, up to only four players from a country will be allowed in the top 15.
at means that using the recent rankings, Scottie Scheffler at No. 1, Xander Schauffelle at No. 3, Wyndham Clark at No. 5 and Patrick Cantlay at No. 8 are eligible for the Paris Olympics.
Max Homa and Brian Harman are ranked ninth and 10th in the world, respectively, but are out of the Olympic golf provisional list. So are Collin Morikawa at 14th, Cameron Young at 15th and a bunch of Americans in the top 60 of the world.
e limit becomes two for countries with players ranked No. 16 and below in the world list.
World No. 2 Rory Mcilroy of Northern Ireland is thus joined by 2021 Tokyo Olympics teammate Shane Lowry, whose rank of 36th in the world puts him in 19th spot on the Olympic list.
England has world No. 11 Tommy Fleetwood (No. 9 on the Olympic qualifying list) and No. 12 Matt Fitzpatrick (No. 10 on the Olympic qualifying list), while out of the running for now for a Paris ticket is fellow English player Tyrell Hatton, who is the world No. 16.
In the women’s side, Nelly Korda at No. 1, Lilia Vu at No. 2, Meghan Kang at 13 and Alison Lee at No. 14 are eligible for the Paris Olympics.
Vu withdrew from the Chevron Championship due to a back issue.
Looking to move into the Olympic spots is world No. 17 Allisen Corpuz, who finished tied for 57th in the Chevron Championship.