Agatha Wong emerges as day’s lone PH medalist

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Agatha Wong of the Philippine wushu team shone brightest for the country in the 18th Asian Games as she delivered the delegation’s third bronze medal on Monday, August 20. 

The College of Saint Benilde graduate performed her routine, unmindful of a recurring tendinitis and a battered right knee and went on to place third in the women’s taijijian and taijiquan all-around wushu competition at the Jakarta International Expo.

Performing second in a field of 16 entries in the finals of the combined event with the song “Heal the World” as her background music, Wong finished third with a score of 9.68 points in the taijiquan to go with the same score of 9.68 in the taijijian Sunday for a total score of 19.36, just enough for her to clinch the bronze in her maiden Asiad stint.

Wong’s bronze medal was the third for the Philippine team here, counting the two others from the men’s and women’s poomsae taekwondo teams.

Gymnastics

Carlos Edriel Yulo qualified for the men’s gymnastics floor exercise and vault finals.

The 18-year-old started his Asian Games debut by topscoring in the floor exercises qualifiers with 14.5 points. He also placed 4th in the men’s vault racking up 14.150 points.

His floor finals will be held on Thursday, August 23 while the vault finals will be on Friday, August 24 both at 4 pm (5 pm, Manila time). 

Softball

The Philippine Blu Girls notched two wins in their double-header against Korea, 5-3, and China, 1-0, in the women’s softball at the Gelura Bung Karno pitch here.

The Blu Girls still have three games to go in the round-robin eliminations against Japan on Tuesday, Indonesia and Chinese-Taipei on Wednesday.

The top four teams will battle it out via the page system, where the top two teams will face each other for the first final slot. 

The second final slot will be contested by the no. 2 team against the winner of the faceoff between No. 3 and No. 4.

Weightlifting

Olympian Nestor Colonia wound up empty-handed again as he placed 7th overall in the men’s 56kg event of the weightlifting tournament. 

The Zamboanga native lifted 113 kg in the snatch and 140 kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 253kg, a far cry from his personal best of 282kg (124-158), which could’ve merited him a silver finish.

Shooting

Hagen Topacio found his shooting touch a little too late, winding up 6th overall in the trap event of the 18th Asian Games shooting championships at the Jakabaring Sports City range.

Jayson Valdez and Amparo Acuña bowed to superior opposition and failed to go beyond the eliminations of the men’s and women’s 10-meter air rifle event, respectively.

After five rounds, Valdez languished in 17th place out of 44 entries with a score of 618.6 points, which, however, was a new national record for the bespectacled shooter.

A 2017 Malaysia Southeast Asian Games bronze medalist, Acuña was mired in 40th spot in a field of 45 shooters with a paltry tally of 603.7 points.

Fencing

The fencers were also victorious in their early forays as Samantha Catantan and Maxine Esteban won their women’s individual foil assignments at the Jakarta Convention Center.

The 17-year-old Catantan swept her three rivals in Pool C, namely Thong Champa of Thailand, 5-1; Rita About of Lebanon, 5-2; and Ho Ka You of Macau, 5-1; before bowing to Yi Ting of China, 0-5, and Karin Miyawaki of Japan, 2-5.

In the Round of 32, Catantan, who missed a Youth Olympic Games slot recently by placing fourth in the Asian Juniors, clipped Thailand’s Ploy Pailin, 15-6, for a Round of 16 match against Hong Kong’s Liu Yan Was, a bronze medalist in the Incheon Games.

Meanwhile, the 18-year-old Esteban carded 2 wins and 3 losses in Pool D, winning over Malaysians Tyanne Fong, 5-0 and Amanda Mery, 5-4, before losing to foes from Japan, Singapore and China.

Esteban, who regularly trained in Europe, dispatched Macau’s Ho Peng, 15-9, in the Round of 32, to set up a battle with Japan’s Azuma Zera, a silver medalist at the World Cadet Championships.

Swimming

Swimmer Jasmine Alkhaldi made it to the final of the women’s 100-meter freestyle event at the GBK Aquatic Center after placing 6th with a 56.38-second clocking during the morning heats.

However, the Asian Games veteran finished at 7th place despite clocking a faster time of 56.29 seconds. 

Taekwondo

In taekwondo, Rhezie Aragon fell to Iranian Elaheh Sheidaei, 2-10, in women’s 53kg round of 16, even as Darlene Arpon defeated Sangita Basyel Nepali, 20-17, in the women’s -67 kg round of 16, to set up a clash against a Korean foe in the quarterfinals.

Cycling

In cycling, John Derrick Farr and Leah Belgira settled for identical 6th-place finishes in the mountain bike cycling’s downhill event where host Indonesia exploited a tremendous home-court advantage to sweep the gold medals offered in the sport.

Farr, 22, finished 8 seconds slower that gold medal winner Khoiful Mukhib, who won gold in two minutes and 16.687 seconds.

Belgira, also 22 and an Asian Games first-timer like Farr, was 22 seconds off another local bet, Tiara Andini Prastika (2:33.056).

“It was a pure home-court advantage,” said Oscar “Boying” Rodriguez, PhilCycling’s MTB commission chairman who also worked the race as an International Commissaire for the cycling discipline.

Tennis

All three Filipino netters were shown the way out in singles play as AJ Lim was the first to fall, exiting the men’s singles with a 4-6, 2-6 loss to China’s Zhang Zhizhen.

Also falling to their opening-round singles foes were Jeson Patrombon and Marian Jade Capadocia in the men’s and women’s singles, respectively.

Top world junior netter and Chinese No. 12 seed Wu Yibing, the 2017 US Open junior champion, outclassed Patrombon, 6-2, 6-1, in the second round while Japan’s Eri Hozumi bundled out Capadocia, 6-1, 6-3, in the first round. – Rappler.com