RP athletes haul five bronzes after four days

BUSAN — After four full days of action and close to a hundred gold medals disputed, the Philippines could only raise five bronze medals, but kept on hoping for the best in the 14th Asian Games here.

All the RP medals came Thursday, a normally cold and cloudy day that was marred by the failure of Efren "Bata" Reyes and Paeng Nepomuceno to win the gold.

Reyes, a billiards player well-loved by the masses, and Nepomuceno, a bowler so admired by his peers worldwide, lost in their respective events, setbacks that cut short the mild celebration after a couple of bronze medals won earlier in the day.

"Medyo malungkot ang kay Bata," said Philippine Olympic Committee president Celso Dayrit, trying to sound upbeat after seeing a potential gold in the 8-ball singles slip away during Reyes’ match against a 27-year-old Taiwanese who won, 9-7.

Dayrit is still confident that the Philippines would deliver in boxing, golf, taekwondo, wushu or even athletic in its bid to surpass its one-gold, five-silver, 12-bronze finish in the 1998 Bangkok Asiad.

Reyes went on to win the bronze by beating Singapore’s Tan Tiong Boon, 9-4.

Nepomuceno, on the other hand, finished fourth in the men’s singles with 1352 pinfalls. He was 20 pins away from the gold won by Ali Al-Hassan of the United Arab Emirates and 11 pins short of the bronze taken away by another UAE kegler, Hulaiman Al-Hameli.

Rowers Alvin Amposta and Nestor Cordova became the first Filipinos to stand on the winners’ podium here when they bagged the bronze in the lightweight sculls doubles, an event ruled by a world-ranked pair from Japan.

Then came the shooters who holstered two bronze medals in the trap courtesy of Jethro Dionisio, and the three-man trap through the efforts of Jaime Recio, Eric Ang and Dionisio, the former world speed shoot champion they called "The Jet."

The fourth bronze for the day came just near the lane where Nepomuceno lost his bid with Liza Clutario scoring in the women’s singles with 1308 pinfalls, just four pins ahead of compatriot Liza del Rosario.

The lone Filipino boxer who climbed the ring, bantam Ferdie Gamo, just fell short of a victory as he took a 10-11 loss to Uzbekistan’s Khidirov Bekzod.

The loss came a day after lightfly Harry Tanamor and lightwelter Romeo Brin hurdled their opening round assignments. Tanamor sees action for the second time Friday against China’s Zhou Shiming with the winner advancing to the quarterfinals.

Lightmiddle Chris Camat, a Fil-American who left his job in California earlier this year to join the national squad, makes his Asian Games debut against Hafeez Imran in the final bout of the day.

The Philippines badly lost the battle in other fronts.

Cyclist Victor Espiritu, a bronze medalist in the Bangkok Asiad, might just leave this port city empty-handed after he failed miserably in his favorite event — the 169 km individual road race.

Espiritu crossed the finish line a poor 18th with a time of 4 hours, 26 minutes and 54 seconds. Elmo Ramos, who was supposed to be his backup, fared even better, finishing 12th in 4:25.52.

Uzbekistan’s Sergev Krumshevskiy bagged the gold in 4:17.59, followed by Kazakhstan’s Alexandre Vinokourou in 4:18.24 and Hong Kong’s Wong Kam Po, the winner four years ago, in 4:19.17.

On the turf, the men’s baseball team, as expected, bowed to Japan, 12-0, a day after jeering the Japanese basketball players who dropped a painful decision to their Filipino counterparts.

The Blu Girls were beaten just the same, losing to China, 2-0, following a 9-0 loss to Japan and a 5-0 setback against South Korea.

In swimming, lone Filipino finalist Jenny Guerrero placed eighth and last in the 200m breaststroke with a time of 2:37.26.

The Philippines threw away six strokes on one treacherous short hole and settled for a share of third place in the first round of the golf competition.

Two-time national amateur champion Angelo Que and Southeast Asian Games gold medalist Juvic Pagunsan staggered with two triple bogeys on out-of-bounds tee shots on the hazard-laden par 3 sixth hole en route to 74 and 75, respectively, as the Filipinos amassed a first day card of 225.

Jerome Delariarte added a 76 while Marlon Dizon didn’t count with a 79. That put RP’s top amateurs in a tie with Japan at 225, seven shots behind first round leader Chinese-Taipei (218) and two off surprise second placer Sri Lanka, which came with only three players for 228 in the 15-nation field.

Reigning national women’s champion Heidi Chua paced the women’s side to a fourth position with a 76.