Fil-Am recruit wins shot put gold medal

STA. CRUZ, Laguna — FilAmerican recruit Caleb Stuart was not at his best, but this did not stop him from winning the Philippines first gold when he topped the shot put event in the opening of the Philippine National Open-Invitational Athletics Championships yesterday at the San Luis Sports Complex here.

Stuart, 24, representing the Philippine Air Force team, had a throw of 16.52 meters on his second attempt to capture the gold medal, beating Malaysian Adi Aliffuddin Hussin, who is expected to be his chief rival in the event in the coming Southeast Asian Games in Singapore.

Hussin, who won the silver in the 2013 Myanmar Southeast Asian Games, needed three throws to take second place at 16.21m. Eliezer Sunang came in third with 16.05m on his second attempt.

It was a creditable performance by Stuart, a track and field recruit from the US, who was actually expected to shine in the hammer throw where he impressed track officials by surpassing the SEA Games record in a recent US meet.

Shot put is only a secondary event for Stuart and it showed in the results. His winning throw was nearly a meter short of his personal best of 17.99 meters and also below the SEAG bronze standard of 16.85m.

But a win is a win for Stuart and for the Philippines whose officials had promised eight gold medals in the Singapore meet in June.

“I’m happy that I won, but I know that I could have thrown better,” the 6-foot-2 Stuart admitted. “I had issues with my technique and I wasn’t able to fix it during the competition.”

At one point, Stuart was seen being instructed by shot put SEAG medalist Arniel Ferrera how to make adjustments.

“He acted as my shot put coach here because my coach is in the US. He helped me tweak my techniques and figure things out. It was good,” Stuart said.