Pinoys still reeling from trauma

BUSAN – It definitely wasn’t the best of Sundays for the Philippines in the 14th Asian Games here.

After settling for three pieces of silver in boxing and wushu earlier in the day, the Philippines took a bigger, more painful blow in basketball when it lost to Kazakhstan in the battle for the bronze at the Sajik Gymnasium.

The bitter 68-66 loss came barely 24 hours after the team, built, trained and expected to bring home a medal of any color, took a jarring 69-68 loss to South Korea in their duel for the right to meet China in the finals.

The Filipino cagers tried hard but failed to leave behind Saturday’s last-second defeat as they struggled and groped for form against the Kazakhs, whom they defeated for the bronze during the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok.

With basketball out of the RP medal column, came in boxing which delivered a silver courtesy of lightfly Harry Tanamor, a gifted fighter whose only fault here was that he had to face a South Korean in the gold medal bout.

Tanamor was all over Kim Ki Suk in the opening round, connecting with his mean left straights and keeping his opponent at bay with sticky right jabs. The Korean was even given the standing eight count with 21 seconds left in the first canto which the Filipino took, 7-4.

The second round was just as steady for Tanamor who held on to a 10-8 edge. But everything changed in the third round as Kim, lean and mean like the RP pug, started to connect and, with a little help from the judges, turned the tide to his favor, 21-18, with one round left.

Tanamor, eager and desperate, earned his next point with only 30 seconds left in the bout. By then, the issue was already settled.

The Philippines has gone without a gold in boxing since Mansueto "Onyok" Velasco, Elias Recaido and Reynaldo Galido won the gold in 1994 in Hiroshima.

The two other silver medals came in wushu courtesy of sanshou bets Marvin Sicomen (52 kg) and Rexel Nganhayna (56 kg). Wushu also won two bronze medals in sanshou’s 65 kg behind Eduard Folayang and changquan three events combined courtesy of Arvin Ting.

Entering its final day of competition in the biggest Asian Games ever, the Philippines has two gold (bowling and billiard), seven silver and 16 bronze medals under its name.

It looks good enough if you’d compare it to the country’s 1-5-12 medal haul four years ago in Bangkok.

The only Filipinos competing on the final day are equestriennes Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski, Michell Barrera and Toni Leviste in individual show jumping, and Roy Vence and Allan Ballester in men’s marathon.

Including Danielle Cojuangco, the Philippines won the silver in equestrian’s team event, and might just pull off the same kind of surprise in the battle for individual supremacy.

It’s an entirely different case with Vence and Ballester who are expected to spend most of the race watching the runners ahead of them. Vence and Ballester have their year’s best times at 2:24.14 and 2:23.47, respectively. The top three runners entered in the event are at least 14 minutes better.

Those who bowed out of their events Sunday were Christabel Martes in women’s marathon, Ernie Candelario, Jimar Aing, Ronnie Marfil and Rodrigo Tanuan in the 4 x 400 relay; Rexel Fabriga in the 10-m platform event in diving; Frederick Feliciano and Eusebio Quinones in cross country mountain biking; and featherweight Kalindi Tamayo and heavyweight Margie Bonifacio in taekwondo.