Tokong stays in Tokyo hunt

John Mark Tokong keeps his Olympic dream alive after making it to the third repechage round of the ISA World Surfing Games in El Salvador Wednesday (Thursday in Manila).

Tokong posted 9.03 points to place second in Heat 7 of the second repechage of this event that stakes tickets to the Tokyo Olympics next month.

Then, he topped Heat 4 in the third repechage after scoring 10.73 points while Jonathan Sambrano joined him to the fourth repechage round at second with 10.6 points.

Unfortunately, Vea Estrellado, Daisy Valdez, Edito Alcala Jr., and Roger Esquivel Jr. ended their run in El Salvador as they could not advance past their respective repechages.

Estrellado wiped out of the competition af ter placing dead last in Heat 4 of the second repechage with 7.36 points, missing out on the two spots against the likes of Lucy Campbell of Great Britain and Kailani Johnson of Indonesia.

Campbell and Johnson tallied 9.90 and 8.87 points, respectively, to place first and second in the group.

Despite making it to the second round, Valdez crashed at fourth place in Heat 6 in the third repechage round with 2.53 points.

Vahine Fierro of France and Shino Matsuda of Japan took the two slots in the group after scoring 7.23 and 6.27 points, respectively.

Alcala and Esquivel, meanwhile, both emerged third in their respective Heats to formally end their runs in this competition.

With that, Tokong and Nilbie Blancada are the only remaining Filipino surfers chasing for slots in the Summer Games.

Blancada fell in the fourth main round last 2 June and will try to stay alive in the competition for as long as possible in the repechage.