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Source: gmanews.tv

-- The Filipino swimmers’ sub-par performance all but sank Miguel Molina’s chances of again winning the coveted Best Male Athlete award of the 25th Southeast Asian Games in Vientiane, Laos.

Although he won half of the RP team’s four gold medals, Molina’s bid for a third straight award is practically nil after he dropped to fifth place in the individual medal race.

Leading the pack is Daniel Bego, a 20-year-old pool dynamo who scooped five of Malaysia’s nine gold medals from the pool.

After winning only two of the possible seven gold medals in the 2007 SEA Games due to high fever, the tanker from Sarawak dominated the 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m freestyle, 200m butterfly and 400m freestyle in impressive fashions, easily making him the most spectacular performer in the Laos Games.

Curiously, all top five contenders in the derby are swimmers.

Trailing Bego are Li Tao of Singapore with four golds; Yi Ting Siow of Malaysia with three golds; Ting Wen Quah of Singapore with two golds, two silvers and one bronze; and Molina, who won the 200m and 400m individual medley and finished second to Bego in the 200m freestyle.

Rounding up the Top 10 are Malaysian divers Mun Lee Yeung (two golds and one bronze) and Bryan Nickson (two golds); Laotian shooter Khanlar Xiayavong (two golds); Vietnamese shooter Ngo Huu Vuong (two golds); and Laotian shuttlecock player Southisone Thonman (two golds).

“Daniel Bego? Oh, he’s on fire all week," said Molina, who clinched the Best Male Athlete award in Manila (2005) and Korat (2007) to become the only Filipino to win the plum twice since Eric Buhain did the trick in 1989 in Kuala Lumpur and 1991 in Manila.

“But I’m not thinking about any personal award or something. I just want to help my teammates win as many gold medals as we can for the country. I prepared hard for this (SEA Games), but my focus is on the Asian Games (next year) so I’m not expecting to win anything big at this point."

Molina also floated the possibility that this might be his final act in the biennial SEA Games.

The national tankers finished with only four golds, six silvers and one bronze in the Laos joust, a far cry from their eight-gold harvest two years ago in Thailand.

Aquatics president Mark Joseph, however, said there’s no need to worry since they fielded a young squad which would be good enough to win in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games.

“We are not worried about our future. We have a fast-growing talent pool to tap."