Jins, tankers deliver for RP as action heats up

Taekwondo and swimming delivered on the day two revered Filipino billiard greats fell by the wayside in the 25th Laos Southeast Asian Games in Vientiane, Laos. With veteran Olympian Toni Rivero showing the way, the mighty Filipino jins plucked two more gold medals Thursday when competitions in the biggest sports meet in the region shifted into high gear.

The 21-year-old Interdisciplinary Studies student outpointed Nguyen Thi Dong of Vietnam, 2-1, to triumph in the women’s welterweight class, while Alexander Briones also did the same in the men’s heavyweight division where he dominated Cambodia’s Sorn Elit, 3-0. Counting the gold won by the women’s poomsae team of Rannie Ortega, Janice Lagman and Camille Alarilla, taekwondo now has a total of three gold medals, easily surpassing the one gold output it won during the 2007 edition of the SEA Games in Korat. Miguel Molina also did his share by repeating in the men’s 400-m individual medley by topping the event with a time of 4:27:00 as the finals of the swimming competitions began Thursday night at the National Sports Complex pool. More is expected to come from the jins as Tshomlee Go, a two-time Olympian (2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing) like Rivero, John Paul Lizardo Jeffrey Figueroa and the rest of the vaunted RP taekwondo squad plunge into action Friday. Taekwondo has so far accounted for the three gold medals won by the Philippines, which currently occupies fifth place (4-5-5) in the standings being led by Singapore (11-3-8). At second is Thailand (6-13-6) followed by Vietnam (6-5-8) and Indonesia (5-0-10). Those victories took some sting off the stunning 7-4 loss by recent World Cup of Pool winners Efren "Bata" Reyes and Francisco "Django" Bustamante in the quarterfinals of billiard’s 9-pool doubles. Reyes and Bustamante grittily fought back from 3-0 and 4-1 deficits to tie the match at 4-4 before the Thai pair of Surathep Phoochalam and Nitiwat Kanjanasri took the last three racks to wrap up the upset win. Swimmer Ryan Arabejo lost his 200-m backstroke title, settling for the silver medal, ditto with jins Marlon Avenido (welterweight) and Kirstie Alora (heavyweight). Alora’s 4-3 loss brought back memories of dubious officiating from the past after the judges awarded her opponent, Thailand’s Rapatkorn Prasopsuk, a late point that prevented the match from going into sudden death. "Sayang talaga dahil ni hindi ko man lang naramdaman yung sinasabi nilang point," said the recent Korea Open winner after the match. "Kung sana napunta ng sudden death napakalaki ng chance nating manalo." Meanwhile, the RP men’s team swept Indonesia 3-0 and its women counterpart squeaked by third-seed Vietnam as they made it to the tennis semifinals to be played on Friday. – GMANews.TV