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NAKHON
RATCHASIMA—The title that mattered the most is back
where it belongs.
The RP
Harbour Centre men’s basketball team emphatically
retained gold medal with a 108-60 massacre of Malaysia.
“Mission
accomplished, but we still have a game to play. We might
as well go out there and play our game and hopefully,
provide morale boost to the other Filipino athletes
still competing here,” said coach Junel Baculi.
“This is
our Christmas gift to the 90 million Filipinos back
home. Thank you for trusting us,” said Dr. Mikee Romero
of Harbour Centre, the team’s backer.
Women warriors.
The RP women’s
team waits for the action to continue in the
preliminaries in beach volleyball and tennis doubles in
the 24th Southeast Asian Games in Thailand. Heidi
Ilustre and Diane Pascua defeated their Vietnamese foes,
21-13, 21-12, to place second in Pool B behind Thailand,
while Czarina Mae Arevalo and Michelle Pang also
disposed of a Vietnamese pair en route to a hard-fought,
6-4, 5-7, (10-5) victory. In basketball, even the
arrival of Matsuno Machiko and a handful of
foreign-based lady dribblers cannot give the women’s
team a medal higher than a bronze. The Philippines lost
to Malaysia, 74-56, to settle for its best finish in
event. --NONIE
REYES
Meanwhile, don’t look now but Team Philippines looked
every inch headed toward what could be its worst finish
in the biennial Southeast Asian Games.
Four
gold medals—out of archery, billiards, boxing and
diving—were added to the Philippine cause, but these
were terribly not enough to buoy the country’s chances
of a modest finish from being the overall champion as
host country in 2005.
With 33
gold medals to show with three days left in the Games
24th edition, the Philippines dropped further down the
medal standings at sixth place.
Hardly a
shadow or a peek of the 100 gold medals sports leaders
said are achievable in these Games could be seen as
Thailand continued to party on home ground and was well
on its way to regaining its throne as overall champion
with 117 gold medals.
Vietnam,
which tremendously improves each SEA Games, kept a
comfortable grip of second place with 57 gold medals
ahead of third-running
Malaysia
(42). Singapore, a very small country known for its
progressive economy rather than its athletic reputation,
had 38 golds to be at fourth, followed by Indonesia,
slowly regaining the vaunted form it used to have, at
fifth with 37 gold medals.
Amaya
Paz earned her second gold medal after her individual
gold in archery’s compound event, this time leading the
women’s team of veteran Jennifer Chan and Abbigail
Tindugan to the title at the expense of Indonesia,
220-212.
 Ronnie
Alcano, one of dozens of RP veteran in pool, lived up to
his reputation as the reigning world champion and bagged
the men’s individual gold medal in 8-ball by beating
Singaporean Choon Kiat Tey, 9-6.
Sheila
Mae Perez also lived up to her reputation and garnered
316.60 points to handily snatch the women’s three-meter
springboard gold medal, beating Malaysia’s Mun Yee Leong
(306.90) and Vietnam’s Thanh Tra Hoang (300.80).
Everybody’s fear that hometown decisions would favor the
hosts in boxing reared Wednesday.
Annie
Albania knocked her Thai foe, Hansa Kadeewong, in the
first round to bag the women’s flyweight gold medal. Her
teammates, two-time Asian champion Mitchel Martinez and
Alice Kate Aparri, couldn’t knockout their opponents and
were beaten in controversial manners that drew the ire
of the entire Philippine delegation.
The
Thais won six of the seven boxing gold medals staked
Wednesday and if the trend of controversial decisions
continues Thursday, they are bound to win 16 of the 17
mints in boxing. The Philippines has seven bets in the
men’s finals.
There
was an obviously alarming scarcity of the gold medals,
even in taekwondo where Filipinos are supposed to hold
their ground.
Beijing
Olympics bound Mary Antoinette Rivero missed her third
consecutive SEA Games taekwondo gold medal as she
settled for silver against Cassandra Haller, a Thai,
5-4, in the women’s under 67 kgs.
Alexander Briones, one of the veterans on the team, also
bagged the same medal after yielding in the men’s under
84 kgs to Vietnamese Trong Cuopng Nguyen, 7-4.
Ma.
Criselda Roxas in the women’s under 72 kgs and Ernesto
Juan Mendoza III could only snatch bronze medals for the
taekwondo team, perhaps one of the most fortunate on
Team
Philippines
for having major corporate backers, besides being a
traditional priority of government funds.
Basketball, always the country’s most important gold
medal in all international campaigns, yielded
contrasting results Wednesday.
The
women’s team laced by Filipino-foreigners ended up with
the bronze medal after absorbing its second straight
loss, 56-74, to Malaysia. The Filipinas wound up with a
1-2 card, their victory coming at Singapore’s expense,
67-55. Malaysia and Thailand, both unbeaten in two
matches, dispute the gold medal Thursday.
The men,
however, only need to face the 0-2 Thais to formally
wear their gold medals.
Call the
nationals merciless but with a focus of sweeping their
way to the gold medal, they humbled the Malaysians with
a near flawless offense, sinking what could be a SEA
Games record 17 three-point shots.
Ramirez
concedes
As the
SEA Games winds down, Philippine Sports Commission (PSC)
chairman William Ramirez yesterday admitted that the
Team Philippines could end up to third or fourth place
only.
Ramirez,
who earlier refused to give his personal gold-medal
prediction in the biennial meet, said that with the
insurmountable lead of host Thailand and Vietnam, the
Philippines has a slim chance of finishing second.
“We did
not perform well,” Ramirez told. It’s sad to say but
finishing second place is beyond our reach with how
Vietnam is performing in all disciplines right now,”
“The
battle for third place is tough and finishing fourth is
even an uphill climb,” he added.
The PSC
chief said that the Team Philippines’ intake of silver
and bronze medals proved that the athletes have trained
hard for the event.
“The
basic training is there but we should not stop there.
They need continuous and high level training,” Ramirez
said. (With Zenaida Dadacay) |
