Tabal debuts, Sunang makes last hurrah

JAKARTA – Marathoner Mary Joy Tabal counts on her Italian training as she makes her Asian Games debut while long jumper Marestella Torres-Sunang competes in what could well be her farewell Asiad in Day Two of athletic competitions at the sprawling national stadium here today.

Tabal answers the firing gun at 6 a.m., hoping to hold her own against the elite East Asian bets and to size up Southeast Asian rivals she’s to face in the SEA Games in Manila next year.

The men’s marathon kicked off the 18th Asiad athletics, starting at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Central Jakarta with a turning point near the National Archives in West Jakarta and ending at the stadium.

Japanese Hiroto Inoue beat Bahrain’s Elhassan Elabbassi in a tight race ending in controversy with the Bahraini contingent complaining of a pushing incident that caused the loss of their bet.

Tabal and her rivals will go through the same route and most probably under the same punishing condition that the Indonesia men’s bet Prayogo, the reigning SEAG champ, had failed to endure.

Amidst an extremely high temperature and humidity, the hometown bet retired in the 30th kilometer with a right leg injury.

Team Phl, however, is confident Tabal is in top condition and ready for the challenge.

“Tabal is a special problem and a special opportunity because she is the No. 1 in Southeast Asia,” said athletics chief Philip Ella Juico of the Cebuana marathoner.

“But the disparity in Southeast Asia and Asia in marathon is very huge considering you have South Korea, Japan, China and the middle eastern countries here,” Juico also said.

Against the best in the world, Tabal was 124th in the 2016 Rio Olympics with a clocking of 3:02:27.

Meanwhile, Sunang, in her fourth and most probably last Asiad, competes in the qualifying event in long jump at 10:30 a.m.

She narrowly missed winning the bronze in her last Asiad in 2010 in Guangzhou at 6.49 but settled for third in the last two SEAGs with a leap of 6.41 in Singapore and 6.45 in Kuala Lumpur. She was the SEAG champ from 2007 to 2011.

Aries Toledo is another Filipino going into action, performing the last five of his events in decathlon.