Cordova surges to Phl 1st rowing gold

NAY PYI TAW – Nestor Cordova won rowing’s first gold in the Southeast Asian Games while the Philippine men’s basketball team stood on the podium to receive the gold medal it already earned a day earlier in a couple gold medal triumphs that gave the Philippines brief moments of celebration in the 27th SEA Games here yesterday.

Opting to stay behind in the four-team competition instead of moving ahead at the start, Cordova worked his way to the lead three-fourth of the way before overtaking the field to win the gold in the single sculls at the Pathelin (Nge Saung Beach).

At the track and field oval, veteran Narcisa Atienza scored 3,942 points to settle for the silver in heptathlon behind runaway winner Wassan Winatho of Thailand (4,286).

Benjamin Tolentino and Edgar Ilas teamed up in the lightweight doubles to win the silver by merely a half-boat length, or 1.4 seconds.

In women’s basketball, Perlas Pilipinas thumped Myanmar, 85-31, and gained the silver behind champion Thailand with a concluding card of 3-1 in the five-nation competition.

The athletics team, which won two gold medals at the start of athletic competitions the other day, drew another bronze from Enrique Panique in the men’s marathon won by Singapore’s Ying Ren Mok.

Panique was keeping the pace in the last five kilometers when the Singaporean stormed into the lead with a rolling running style he learned from his training in Japan. Ying overtook the Burmese runner and Panique in the last five kilometers and coasted home to win in two hours, 28 minutes, 35 seconds.

Thaung Aye was second in 2:29:50 and Panique third in 2:30:30.

Earl Benjamin Yap earned the first bronze in the individual compound in archery in a shootoff with teammate Delfin Adriano after they finished tied a 143.

With their modest efforts for the day, the Philippines’ medal standing was at a standstill for the third successive day. It remained at seventh place with 12-17-25 gold-silver-bronze medals.

Thailand took its customary place at the top with 50-42-44, dropping Myanmar to second with 39-35-33, Vietnam third (39-34-41), Indonesia fourth (35-40-57), Malaysia fifth (25-19-42) and Singapore sixth (18-14-24).

“It’s bad, it’s very bad,” said Philippine Sports commissioner Jolly Gomez after the events were all accounted for.

“I don’t think we can move higher than seventh,” he added.

The Philippines lost one gold medal in 9-ball event in billiards with the loss of Dennis Orcollo to Thai Nitiway in the quarterfinals and Carlo Biado to Aung Moe Thu of Myanmar as early as the first round.

Ricky Yang of Indonesia and Khas Tiam of Malaysia were disputing the title last night.