GOLDEN BET. The Philippines' Ernest John Obiena (in blue) is on his way to practice at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China on Friday (Sept. 29, 2023). The World No. 2 pole vaulter is expected to deliver the country's first gold medal on Saturday night (Sept. 30). (PSC-POC Media Pool)
HANGZHOU, China – Alexandra Eala and Francis Alcantara bagged the bronze medal in the mixed doubles of tennis competitions at the 19th Asian Games here Friday.
Taiwanese Liang En-Shuo and Huang Tsung-hao beat the Filipino pair, 7-5, 6-3, in the semifinals.
“If overachievement is a thing, then we have the potential to do more,” the 18-year-old Eala said in a news release.
Eala ended up with two bronze medals in her maiden Asian Games stint, the other one from the women’s singles the day before.
Team Philippines has an overall one silver and six bronze medals as of posting time, the tennis pair saving the country from a zero-medal day.
Barring any unforeseen circumstance, the first gold may come from Asia’s best pole vaulter and World No. 2 Ernest John Obiena on Saturday.
The overwhelming favorite to win, he is expected to obliterate the opposition in the event slated at 7:05 p.m. at Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre.
“My aim is to win. That’s the goal,” Obiena, 27, said in a previous interview.
Obiena doesn’t own the Asian Games record though. The distinction belongs to Japanese Seito Yamamoto, who leaped to a height of 5.75 meters during the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games.
The Filipino pole vaulter, who was recovering from an injury at that time, placed only seventh in that edition and went on to post just 5.45 meters.
Obiena will be aiming for payback against the 31-year-old Yamamoto, whose best showing this season is just 5.60 which he did in the L'Anneau-Halle d'athlétisme de Metz in France in February.
Obiena's personal best is 6.0 meters.
“This is the opportunity for us Filipino athletes to show what we've got,” Obiena said.
Elma Muros bagged the country's last athletics medal, a bronze in women’s long jump in the 1994 Hiroshima, Japan edition.
Daniel Patrick Caluag, meanwhile, vies in cycling’s BMX Racing on Sunday, Oct. 1, exactly nine years ago since he won the country’s one and only gold medal at the 17th Asian in Incheon, South Korea.
“I remember it as if it was yesterday,” Caluag said on Friday after his second day testing the track.
He was 27 years old at the time, coming off his first Olympics in London 2012 and a win at the 2013 Asian championships in Singapore.
BMX racing was relatively new on the global stage, having been accepted as a medal sport in the Olympics only in Beijing 2008.
“I was young, motivated and hungry for success, eager to be the best in BMX and to put the Philippines on the map,” Caluag, now a registered nurse in the United States, said.
He’ll be up against riders a decade younger than him on the Chun’an track.
In softball, the Philippine Blu Girls lost to defending champion Japan, 2-9, at the start of the Super Round at Shaoxing Baseball & Softball Sports Centre-Softball Field 1.
“Still a good game, 2-3 until five innings with seven hits. The confidence of the team is there, and for the first time, Japan fielded its best pitcher in Olympics, nakababad (stayed in the game long),” coach Ana Santiago said, satisfied with her players’ efforts.
The Blu Girls will aim for a bronze when it takes on 2018 silver medalist Chinese Taipei next.
The team of Tiea Isabella Salvino, Kayla Noelle Sanchez, Xiandi Chua, and Chloe Kennedy Isleta also finished fifth overall, and established a new Philippine record of 8:12.80 in the finals of the 4x200m freestyle swimming competitions.
The Philippines was the best Southeast Asian country in the race dominated by China, which checked in with a time of 7:49.34.
The Pinay tankers' clocking shattered the previous national mark of 8:15.46, set in the 2019 Manila Southeast Asian Games by Jasmine Alkhaldi, Chua, Nicole Oliva, and Remedy Rule.
It has been 41 years since the Philippines won a gold medal in Asiad swimming when William Wilson ruled the men's 200m freestyle at the 1982 New Delhi Games.
The last medal for the country was delivered by Raymond Papa, who got two bronzes in the men's 100m and 200m backstroke at the 1998 Bangkok Games. (PSC-POC Media Group/PNA)
