PHNOM PENH—Carlo Paalam and Nesthy Petecio were true to form atop the ring and Elreen Ando shattered weightlifting records as the Philippines wrested fifth place from Singapore with a nine-gold medal binge Sunday in the 32nd Southeast Asian Games.
Paalam and Petecio made it a 3-of-5 golden campaign for the Filipinos at the end of boxing competitions with arnis delivering two golds and weightlifting, judo, esports and wrestling one apiece.
Paalam, who won a silver as a flyweight in the Tokyo Olympics, dominated Aldoms Suguro of Indonesia in the men’s bantamweight final while Petecio overwhelmed another Indonesian in the women’s featherweight division.
Their victories sandwiched the gold medal conquest of Paul Bascon over Rujakran Juntrong of Thailand in a light welterweight clash as the Filipino boxers wound up with four gold medals, counting featherweight Ian Clark Bautista’s win Saturday.
Ando kicked off the Philippines rally early Sunday by setting new records in the 59 kgs class of women’s weightifting, with judoka Rena Furukawa retaining her under 57 kgs women’s crown.
Esports delivered its second gold through the Sibol men’s team that swept Malaysia, 3-0, in the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang final and Jason Balabal topped the 82kg class of men’s wrestling.
Charlotte Ann Tolentino and Jedah Mae Soriano delivered the first two of an expected avalanche of gold in arnis, ruling the women’s full contact padded stick finals in the bantamweight and lightweight classes, respectively.
The national contingent—backed by the Philippine Sports Commission and the Philippine Olympic Committee—amassed a total of 46 gold medals for fifth place.
Singapore’s gold medal production stuck at 42 going into the last two days of action.
Matching the country’s fourth place finish last year in Vietnam, however, looked dim with Indonesia and Cambodia already breaking the 60-gold mark.
Vietnam was on its way to taking the overall crown anew by approaching the 100-gold mark, with Thailand sure of taking at least second before it hosts the next edition of the games in 2025.
Michael Angelo Sayson, Nowee Macasa, Angelo Kyle Arcangel and Marco Stephen Requitiano strike a championship pose with
Cavite Vice Governor Athena
Tolentino.
Gilas Pilipinas’ women’s squad in regular basketball humbled Thailand 82-70 and improved to 4-1 in a tie with Malaysia.
With Afril Bernardino showing the way with 18 points, the Filipinas dictated the tempo of the match, turning back the Thais’ desperate comeback bid.
They clash with Malaysia for the silver medal on May 15.
Indonesia, which shocked the Filipinas 89-68 last Friday, looks set to win the women’s cage gold.
Furukawa proved too much for Chu Myat Noe Wai of Myanmar in their battle for the under 57kg class and delivered judo’s first gold medal here.
Ando, taking over from the absent Olympic champ Hidilyn Diaz, topped the women’s 59kg class with a total lift of 216kg punctuated by new games records of 118kg in the clean and jerk and 98kg in the snatch.
Another lifter, Rosalina Faustino, won a silver medal in the women’s 55kg category.
Table tennis contributed a bronze to the country’s tally courtesy of Richard Gonzales and John Russel Misal in men’s doubles
action.
Image credits: Roy Domingo
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