By Jun Lomibao
SINGAPORE—Caleb Stuart opened on Monday with a record-breaking performance in men’s hammer throw of athletics and the ball is now rolling for Team Philippines, which has finally jostled past Myanmar for sixth place on the medal tally board.
Stuart’s record throw sparked a gold-medal run in athletics and similar conquests by Chezka Centeno in billiards and Reyland Capellan in gymnastics, hiking the Philippine haul to 12 gold, 17 silver and 26 bronze medals for sixth place on the tally board and in the process shoving Myanmar to seventh with 10-16-18 (gold-silver-bronze).
“I’m happy that I came here and did what I had to do and win gold for our country,” said the soft-spoken 24-year-old Stuart, a former University of Califorinia-Riverside varsity team mainstay.
Stuart lived up to expectations and threw the hammer to a games record 65.63 meters, shattering the old standard of 62.23 meters held by defending champion Tanti Petchaiya of Thailand.
Petchaiya could only settle for the silver with 62.18 meters, while Malaysia’s Jackie Swiew Wong clinched the bronze with 61.18 meters. Stewart’s veteran teammate, Arnel Ferreira, a four-time Sea Games titlist, placed fourth with 60.08.
Eric Shauwn Cray and Kayla Anise Richardson were unstoppable in the centerpiece 100 meters. Cray ran 10.25 seconds in ruling the men’s race and Richardson submitted 11.76 seconds to top the women’s contest.
Indonesians Yaspi Bobi and Iswandi Iswandi finished in a dead heat for the silver medal of the men’s century dash, but the jury awarded second place to Bobi.
But Richardson’s result had to go under the scrutiny of the jury after she finished in a dead heat with Thailand’s Wannakit.
“After a scrutiny by the jury, the gold was awarded to Kayla because her right leg crossed the line first,” Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association President Philip Ella Juico said.
Singapore’s Veronica Pereira clinched bronze in the women’s 100 meters—where Lydia de Vega’s 1987 record of 11.2 remained— with a time of 11.88.
Centeno upstaged fancied countryman Rubilen Amit, 5-7, to win the women’s 9-ball title—the second for the Philippines in billiards after Warren Kiamco and Carlos Biado’s men’s 9-ball doubles on Sunday.
Capellan nursed a right-shoulder injury but fought with a big heart to bag gold in the men’s artistic all-around event of gymnastics at the Expo Sports Hall 2 despite
The 5-foot-2 pocket dynamo was a picture of confidence and artistry in taking the gold medal with a score of 14.733 points, .167 better than Singapore’s Hoe Wah Toon who took the silver (14.566). Vietnam’s Phuoc Hung Pham was third (14.500) and had the bronze.
It marked the country’s first gold medal in the men’s artistic gymnastics since Roel Ramirez bagged two mints in the 2005 Philippine SEA Games.
“Masaya po at nanalo po ako para sa ating bayan,” said Capellan, 21, a former Centro Escolar University cheerleader who was just sixth in the qualifiers three day days ago and was performing with a bum shoulder that had been bothering him since late last year.
Nanjing Youth Olympic Games veteran Ava Verdeflor bagged a silver in the women’s uneven parallel bars by scoring 12.336 points, raising the national gymnastics’ team medal collection to three, counting the women’s team bronze last Sunday.
Singapore continued to look unbreakable atop the tally board with 47 gold medals, keeping Thailand at bay by 10 mints. Vietnam was still third with 31 gold medals, Malaysia was fourth with 21 and Indonesia 17.
On Wednesday focus will be on three sports Filipinos are raving about.
Eight Filipino boxers will be fighting for gold medals, the Gilas Pilipinas Cadets will take on Indonesia and the Amihan, the national women’s volleyball team, will showcase their skills—and charms—also against Indonesia.
The women’s basketball team, meanwhile, bowed to Thailand, 57-62, on Wednesday to find its gold-medal hopes turn dim right on the first day of hoops action.
Image credits: AP