Lone gold remains PH only glitter
PH athletes suffer defeats in various fronts after Hidilyn’s weightlifting victory
JAKARTA — The 272-strong Philippine contingent started to shed off its luster with the bets from taekwondo, archery, and fencing stopped dead in their tracks Thursday in the 2018 Asian Games.
Barely 24 hours after the Blu Girls’ bid for a podium finish nearly got ruined by Chinese-Taipei, 3-2, the Filipinos struggled to light up the medal standings and sank to 18th place as of press time with a paltry collection of one gold medal and four bronzes.
With China starting to pull away with a harvest of 50 golds, 33 silvers and 15 bronzes, followed by Japan (2024-27) and Korea (11-19-26), the Philippines is hoping that better days are ahead as its regional rivals, current fifth-placer Indonesia (7-5-9), seventh Thailand (5-3-13), 13th Vietnam (1-4-7) and 15th Malaysia (1-2-1) making their moves up the leaderboard.
Singapore is just right under the Philippines’ nose and is likewise beginning to step up to the plate and catch up with the Thais and their regional rivals in the race for supremacy in Southeast Asia.
The lone gold so far won by the Philippines came from Rio Olympics silver medalist Hidilyn Diaz of weightlifting, who snared the glittering medal in the 53 kg. on Tuesday.
Unlike Diaz, the other lifters have been unsuccessful in their bids, most especially Nestor Colonia, who melted away Monday.
The five bronzes were provided by Pauline Lopez of taekwondo and the men and women’s poomsae teams as well as Agatha Wong and Divine Wally of wushu.
During Thursday’s early sessions, archery could not find its target with Nicole Tagle being shown the door, 6-2, in the individual recurve round-of-16 by Korean hotshot Kang Chae Young, the two-time World Cup champion and world championships standout.
Tagle earned the right to face Kang in the quarters after edging Khatvn Mst Ety of Bangaldesh in the round of 32.
Arven Alcantara initially thought he would advance after dumping Alahmed Abdulla of Qatar, 44-11, in their round of 16 match in the -68 kg. class.
But the smile on his face disappeared when he rammed into a super Korean entry in Lee Daehon, a 26year-old three-time world champion, two-time Asian Games king and silver and bronze medalists in two Olympics.
Lee posted a 26-5 victory over Alcantara in a show of utter superiority.
The fencers also followed the path of the growing list of athlete-turnedtourists as the women’s foil lost to China in the quarterfinals after beating host Indonesia in the round-of-16.
The lone bright hope so far was the Philippine women’s volleyball team’s victory over Hong Kong in straight sets, 25-18, 25-21, 25-22.
The win was the team’s first win in three games after suffering devastating defeats to Thailand and Japan.
But there seems to be hope on the horizon with boxing beginning its bid Friday following Thursday’s afternoon draw and gymnast Carlos Yulo, said to be a cinch for the gold in the floor exercise, seeing action at press time.