Lerma settles for bronze in Asian GP

Lerma Bulauitan-Gabito fell short of her personal best in the long jump finals but still managed a bronze medal for a respectable finish in this year’s Asian Grand Prix which came to a close yesterday at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.

Gearing up for the Athens Olympics in August, Gabito posted a jump of 6.51 meters on the fourth of her six attempts to nail a second straight bronze in the event that gathered some of Asia’s finest in 15 choice events.

Winning the gold at 6.71 was China’s Liang Shuyan while taking the silver was Uzbekistan’s Juravieva Anastasiya at 6.55. Shuyan also won the gold in Sri Lanka.

Gabito, 29, booked a personal best of 6.56 in the second leg of the Grand Prix last week in Sri Lanka. She was a poor sixth in the opening leg in Thailand two weeks ago after a below-par 6.31.

Gabito won $1,000 for each of the bronze medals she won. Her 6.56 in Sri Lanka gave the tanned Filipina beauty an outright slot in the women’s long jump in Athens where she hopes to fulfill her dream of breaking the 6.60 barrier.

"Then I can retire," she said yesterday.

Of course, she wasn’t too serious about an early retirement because there’s the Manila SEA Games waiting for her next year. Her 6.56 is good for the SEA Games gold since it matched the Games record set by Elma Muros, now retired.

Gabito said she could have done better yesterday if not for the heat. She remembered posting 6.56 in Sri Lanka where the long jump finals was held early in the evening. She added that she’d lost some weight over the last couple of weeks — from 54 to 52 kgs.

"But I’ll recover and get back in top form before leaving for Athens. I’m planning to go to Baguio once the weather up there improves," added Gabito whose mother, Gertrudes, watched the event sponsored by Milo and the PSC.

The Philippines won three other bronze medals — in the men’s and women’s 4 x 400 where only three countries fielded entries and the women’s 1,500 where there were only four runners, including two from the Philippines.

Tatiana Borisova of Kyrgystan won the 1,500 gold at 4:20.30 followed by Svetlana Lukasheva of Kazakhstan at 4:22.59 and Librada Tamson of the Philippines at 5:31.39. The other local bet, Mercedita Manipol, did not finish the race.

A gold is worth $2,000, silver $1,500, bronze $1,000 and fourth $500. There’s no prize money for team events.

The men’s 4 x 400 gold went to India (3:05.03), the silver to Sri Lanka (3:05.81) and the bronze to the Philippines’ Julius Niera, Jimar Aing, Ronnie Marfil and Ernie Candelario (3:10.69). The women’s gold went to India (3:31.94), silver Kazakhstan (3:49.51) and bronze the Philippines’ Sharon Gismundo, Arianne Lunasco, Melody Tarcena and Riezel Buenaventura (4:19.22).

Other winners were Kazakhstan’s Gennadiy Chernovol (100 m men 10.36), Uzbekistan’s Perepelova Lyubov (100 m women 11.17), China’s Feng Yun (100 m hurdles women 13.14), India’s Navpreet Singh (shotput men 18.83 m) and China’s Li Yanfeng (discus women 63.46 m).