Thursday, December 13, 2007 Former World Champ delivers one gold
AFTER days of waiting, the RP team finally collected gold medals from its pet events—billiards and boxing—in the seventh of the 24th Southeast Asian Games in Thailand yesterday.
However, this does not change the fact that the Philippine Team continued to drop from the overall tally. As of yesterday, the RP team dipped another rank lower to sixth.
After Malaysia took over the fourth place yesterday, things worsened when Indonesia dislodged both Malaysia and the Philippines to take fourth place and the defending overall champion was relegated to the sixth spot.
The Philippines had 32 gold medals, 42 silvers and 67 bronzes as of yesterday. Malaysia and Indonesia have identical gold medals yesterday with 33, while Singapore remained at third with 38 golds, 21 silvers and 31 bronzes.
Host Thailand assures itself of the overall win as it padded its medal haul to 103-93-79, while current second placer Vietnam is at a distant second with 51 golds.
The Philippine team may be at a faraway sixth as of the moment, but in the ranking based on the total number of medals, the Philippines is at second place after a bountiful silver and bronze medal haul.
Yesterday, only four gold medals were won courtesy of cue artist Ronato Alcano, pugilist Annie Albania, diver Sheila Mae Perez and the archers in the compound women’s team in archery. Alfie Catalan accounted for the last medal the other day after winning the men’s individual pursuit in track cycling.
Alcano, the 2006 World Pool Champion, dominated the men’s 8-ball singles, winning over Choon Tey Kiat of Singapore, 9-6. This is RP’s third gold medal in billiards after Amit Rubilen won the women’s 9-ball and the men’s team winning the 9-ball doubles.
In boxing at the Tumbon Mueangpug Gymnasium, Albania took the country’s first gold in the sport after winning over Hansa Kadeewong.
More golds are to be expected in boxing as Albania is only the first of 13 Pinoy fighters who made the finals.
The rest were set to go for the gold late last night.
The RP team lady archers Jennifer Chan, Paz Amaya and Abigail Tindungan capped the archery competition with a gold medal finish in the compound women’s team competition after scoring 220 in the final round, to sneak past Indonesia team, which had 212.
Diver Sheila Mae Perez, a multi gold medal winner in the 2005 Sea Games, collared her first gold in Thailand after topping the women’s 3m springboard during the opening day of the diving competitions.
Perez scored 315.75 from her attempts. Her second placer, Malaysia’s Leong Mun Yee only scored 306.36.
Catalan, on the other hand, extended his dominance in the individual pursuit at The King’s Velodrome, where he outclassed Malaysia’s Amir Rusli and Indonesia’s Projo Waseso.
In beach volleyball, Heidi Ilustre and Diane Pascua entered the semifinal round of the women’s action after pulling out a 21-13, 21-12 win over Vietnam. (MCB)
