Inso wins wushu silver

HANOI, VIETNAM – Jones Inso came up with a near-flawless routine and seemed to have the gold medal all sewed up with one competitor left in the men’s taijiquan event of wushu Friday in the 31st Vietnam Southeast Asian Games at the Cau Gias Sporting Hall here.

To the horror of his teammates and Wushu Federation of the Philippines officials, Malaysian Zhi Yan Tan, the last of the nine participants, pulled off a slim victory, impressing the judges who gave him 9.71 points and relegating Inso, who had 9.70 points, to the silver medal.

Inso, however, welcomed the result, which eclipsed by leaps and bounds his failure to come up with a podium finish in the 2019 SEA Games back home in the Philippines.

Singapore’s Jun Kai Chan won the bronze with 9.57 while another Filipino entry, Daniel Parantac, finished seventh with 9.26.

The crowd was deeply disappointed when hometown bet Phuong Nguyen, who was doing well, twisted an ankle late in his routine. The Vietnamese fell to the mat and lay motionless before medical staff carried him off the competition venue.

Freddie Jalasco, a former basketball official who is now the president of Wushu Federation of the Philippines, said: “Akala ko atin na. Sayang talaga dahil near-flawless si Jones. He won the silver but a gold medal was achievable.”

Two more Filipinos – Thornton Quieney Lou Sayan and Johnzenth Gajo Rapada – also competed but failed to land a medal.

Sayan scored 9.63 in the men’s taolu nandao where local bet Quoc Khanh Pham emerged victorious with 9.70. Malaysian Wai Leong Calvin Lee settled for the silver with 9.69 while another Vietnamese, Van Huu Nong, bagged the bronze with 9.67.

Rapada bowed out in the men’s taolu changquan with a score of 9.63.

Filipino wushu artists have dominated previous SEA Games editions with medal hauls of 114-2 in 2005 and 7-2-2 in 2019 in Manila.

Eleven Pinoy wushu artists are competing here, eight of them men, with Jalasco expecting a modest harvest of at least two gold medals due to the failure of his charges to train under a foreign coach.

“We couldn’t train the way we used to train because of the pandemic. Then our Chinese coach did not arrive in Manila because of problems with his travel documents in China,” he said. /