HANGZHOU—Indonesia beat the Philippines, 21-15, 24-25, 17-19, in Tuesday’s semifinal of sepaktakraw’s men’s quadrant action at the Jinhua Sports Centre Gymnasium.
It was one loss that would go down in Philippine sepaktakraw history—it’s the first medal, a bronze, for the country in the sport indigenous to the Asian Games.
“We’re happy to contribute a medal to the country’s campaign,” said sepaktakraw association head Karen Tanchanco Caballero, also one of four deputy chiefs of mission of Team Philippines. “The athletes worked hard for this.”
sepak takraw quote from sepak head karen tanchanco caballero….[ 3 October “This medal is 33 years in the making since the sport’s inclusion in 1990 thus making the podium finish extra sweet for our association,” Caballero said. “We hopse this would inspire more Filipino kids that we finally sealed our respectable rank in Asia and the world.”
She added: “Asians are the best in the world in sepaktakraw and I’m happy we finally got the elusive Asian Games medal after conquering medal finishes in our world cup, Southeast Asian Games and super series.”
It was the ninth bronze medal for Team Philippines in the Asian Games that are down to five days of competition.
The Philippines still had one gold medal to show courtesy of Ernest John “EJ” Obiena’s Asian Games record-breaking performance in men’s pole vault with wushu’s Arnel Mandal contributing a silver in wushu’s sanda.
Rheyjey Ortouste, Jason Huerte, Vince Alyson Torno and Mark Joseph Gonzales couldn’t sustain the momentum from their first-set win as the Indonesians leveled up on their play and forced the Philippines to share of the bronze medal with Japan.
China will be a runaway overall champion of the games it is hosting for the third time—after Beijing 1990 and Guangzhou 2010—with 156 gold medals, way ahead of second-running Japan with 33 golds and South Korea with 32.
The rest of the 45-nation games are settling for crumbs—India and Uzbekistan have 13 gold medals each, followed by Chinese Taipei with 12, Thailand with 10, North Korea with seven and Hong Kong and Bahrain with six each to round up the top 10 in the medal tally board.