INCHEON, South Korea—The Philippines finally hit gold three days before the 17th Asian Games come to a close in this bustling port city close to the capital Seoul, where the mint became as scarce as ever in the quadrennial sports gathering among the continent’s 45 countries.
“This is for our country. This is for the Filipino people,” Daniel Caluag said after dominating the men’s BMX of cycling at the Ganghwa Track.
Caluag, 27, a newly minted registered nurse in the US and now a proud father to Sydney Isabella, who was born only last week, dominated the morning seeding run and all three motos at mid-day to bag the gold medal running away.
With Caluag’s victory, the Philippine haul on Wednesday stood at 1-2-5 (gold-silver-bronze). Wushu produced two silver and one bronze medals, while taekwondo had two and archery one bronze.
The seeding run was peanuts for the Filipino-American, whose father is from Bataan and his mother a native of Bulacan. He clocked 35.431 seconds over the 400-meter Olympic track to set the tone for his golden run that all but gave each member of the Philippine delegation here a big sigh of relief.
The veteran of the London 2012 Olympics and 2013 Asian Championships gold medalist kept that position in all three motos—35.277 in moto 1; 35.366 in moto 2, where he edged Japan’s Masahiro Sampei in a photo finish; and 35.431 in moto 3.
Sampei, 24, settled for the silver medal, while China’s Zhu Yan bagged the bronze.
Caluag’s younger brother Christopher John missed out on a 1-3 finish for the Philippines. The 26-year-old Christopher John was third after the first two motos but landed fifth in the third to finish fourth overall.
The BMX gold was the Philippines’s first in cycling since the 1951 Asian Games. The country’s record in the sport prior to Incheon was two silver and eight bronze medals. The now retired former Tour champion Victor Espiritu bagged the country’s last Asian Games medal after finishing third in men’s road race in the 1988 Bangkok edition.
Image credits: AP