Wushu warrior delivers; Gilas Pilipinas debuts vs Bahrain

HANGZHOU – Jones Inso of wushu delivered a bronze medal for Team Philippines on a sunny Monday afternoon when others tried very hard, but failed, to land on the coveted podium in the 19th Asian Games here.

Inso, from the rich, beautiful mountains of La Trinidad, Benguet, showed fine form to win the bronze in the men’s taijiquan-taijijian all-around event. He provided his country its second medal following another bronze from Patrick King Perez in poomsae last Sunday.

The 26-year-old Inso had a 19.216 total from the bare hand and sword play and finished behind Chinese master Gao Haonan (19.666) and Hong Kong expert Hui Tak Yan (19.49).

His bronze medal came as Team Philippines licked the wounds from setbacks on various fronts while looking forward to the first appearance of its fancied men’s basketball team tonight against Bahrain.

Inso’s feat, somehow, eased the pain of multiple losses suffered by Team Philippines in rowing, judo, taekwondo, swimming and boxing, which is relying heavily on Tokyo Olympics silver and bronze medalist Nesthy Petecio and Eumir Marcial.

But there’s none as painful as that of Kurt Barbosa in taekwondo. The Tokyo Olympics veteran who’s unbeatable in the last three stagings of the SEA Games dropped his opening match in men’s 58kg Kyorugi (free sparring) against Uzbekistan’s Omonjon Otajonov.

Meanwhile, as expected, host China started to run away from the pack with 32 gold, 14 silver and five bronze medals after two full days of top-level competition. South Korea is at 6-8-10 followed by Japan at 4-12-9, Uzbekistan at 4-4-3 and Hong Kong at 2-3-6.

A nine-year-old skateboarder, the youngest member of Team Philippines and perhaps among the 12,471 athletes in this Asian Games, made a lot of heads turn despite a seventh-place finish in the girl’s park event.

Standing just above four feet, Mazel Paris Alegado, based in California, showed the biggest heart, and won the adulation of her peers – older and taller – in the sport that’s making a grand debut in the Asiad.

“She’s just nine years old. I just told her to enjoy and have fun. But we should expect more from her in the coming years,” said POC president Abraham Tolentino.

JR Francisco missed the podium in the men’s park by a hairline, finishing fourth behind a Chinese and two Japanese. It was just a fraction on the judges’ cards (83.66 to 83.58) that separated the Filipino from the bronze medalist.

The POC chief rued the final outcome.

“We were robbed of the bronze,” said the POC president. “Yung nag-bronze na Japanese, hindi niya dapat na-dislodge si Francisco. Na box-out tayo.”

The men’s 3x3 team drove past Jordan, 13-8,to lessen the impact of the withdrawal of the women’s team due to, of all reasons, the lack of players.

Alex Eala of tennis found her strokes early and never gave Pakistan’s Sarah Ibrahim Khan a chance in a 6-0, 6-0 win that should give the precocious 18-year-old the boost in her drive toward the medal round.

Eala, a product of the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy in Spain, will also see action in mixed doubles with Ruben Gonzales.

The women’s football team nicknamed Filipinas were trailing the dreaded South Koreans, 5-1, as of presstime at a venue that’s hard to reach unless you take the train that travels 300 kilometers per hour.

Then Gilas.

With all the complications behind them now, the all-pro squad takes on Bahrain, highly expected to notch a first win here, and get the ball rolling in its bid to end a long dry spell dating back to 1998 when coach Tim Cone steered the Centennial Team to the bronze.

Cone tried to play safe by saying Bahrain, ranked No. 84 in the world and 44 notches lower than the Philippines “are going to be a challenge.”

With Justine Brownlee and Ange Kouame around, the Filipinos are tipped to win big against Bahrain then head to Wednesday’s game against close neighbor Thailand and Saturday’s clash with Jordan.

That should be the real challenge.

Fil-Canadian Kayla Sanchez and Tiea Salvino finished sixth (28.66) and eighth (28.79) in the women’s 50-meter backstroke final won by China’s Xueer Wang (27.35). Xiandi Chua finished eighth in the women’s 200-m IM final at 2:16.18. China’s Yu Titing won the gold with plenty to spare (2:07.75).

Kiyomi Watanabe of judo, a silver winner in 2018 in Jakarta, bowed to Japan’s Miku Takaichi, a two-time silver medalist in the World Championships, in the women’s -63kg class. Watanabe lost by Ippon with barely 12 seconds off the clock.

In the repechage, Watanabe suffered a similar fate, losing via Ippon to Esmigul Kuyulova of Kazakhstan in only 13 seconds. Joining Watanabe in the sidelines were Keisei Nakano, Rena Furukawa, John Ferrer and Ryoko Salinas.

In rowing, Joanie Delgaco kissed her medal hopes goodbye after finishing fifth in the women’s single sculls with a time of eight minutes and 5.93 seconds. Chris Nievarez was eighth in the men’s side at 7:19.45.

Then in boxing, Asian Games debutant Aaron Jude Bado lost to Thailand’s Thitisan Panmot via RSC – injury in the second round of their 51kg bout.