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."
Source: Gerry Carpio, philstar.com
-- The Filipinos’ drive got some lift from golden feats in taekwondo, karatedo and swimming – on Miguel Molina’s second gold – but this hardly gave the Phlippines the boost it needed for a third-place finish as Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia surged mightily on the third day of the Southeast Asian Games here yesterday.
Two-time Olympian Tshomlee Go won taekwondo’s fourth gold and with its three silver and three bronze medals, the fancied team of PTA head Robert Aventajado has become the winningest team so far among 22 squads competing in the biennial meet.
At the Chao Anovoung gymanbsium in downtown Vientiane, Marna Pabillore imposed her supremacy over a tough Vietnamese to win the -65kg category in karatedo.
At nightfall, the Japan-trained Molina reigned anew in the 4x50m individual medley with a clocking of 2:03.68 after ruling the 400IM Thursday.
Fil-Am Charles Walker, competing for the first time in the SEA Games, took the silver in the 100m freestyle in a new Philippine record of 50.-6 seconds. Gold medalist Daniel Bego of Malaysia won it in a new SEAG record time of 50.16.
Walker, 19, improved the 51.11 Philippine norm established by Molina himself in the 2007 when he swam the first leg of the national relay team in the SEAG. RP’s diving queen Sheila Mae Perez, Olympian and two-time gold medalist of the SEAG, settled for silver (286 points) in her favorite 3m springboard event won by Keodouangta Fasavang (290 points) of the host nation.
In the evening session, Ryan Fabriga contributed a bronze medal in 10m platform with a score 413.95 behind Malaysia’s Bryan Nickson (476.15) and Muhammad Nasrullah of Indonesia (421.65).
As of 8:15 p.m., the Philippines was running sixth with 7-10-7 gold-silver-bronze medals behind Vietnam 14-10-10, Thailand 13-20-16, Singapore 12-5-10, Indonesia 11-7-14 and Malaysia 8-8-18.
Rounding up the standings were Laos 4-3-11, Myamar 2-4-7, Cambodia 1-3-4, Brunei 0-0-3 and Timor Leste 0-0-1.
Zaidi Laruan of muay kept RP’s gold hope alive in the lightweight class after whipping Vietnam’s Ly Hoang Tan in the semifinal.
Maricel Subang, however, failed to advance, losing to Nguyen Tuyet Dung of Vietnam in their semifinal round match in light flyweight and bowed out with the country’s third bronze.
Also in position to capture medals are the snooker doubles team of Roberto Gomez Jr and Carlo Biado, who eliminated Lao tandem of Khamsai and Deathavong, 3-2 in the quarterfinals.
Reynaldo Grandea made easy work of Myanmar’s Aung San, 1-0 in the preliminaries of cushion single carom.
The national golf squad stood at fourth after the first round with 217, four strokes off Singapore. Myanmar and Thailand were dead even at 214.
In individual play, Mark Fernando and Antonio Asistio shared fourth with 71s, two behind leader Jonathan Leong of Singapore.
Filipino male netters likewise entered the finals after edging Indonesia, 2-1, in the semis. Their female counterparts, however, dropped their semis match against Thailand, 1-2 and finished with a bronze.
Shooting produced the worst results for RP as Shanin Gonzales (368) wound up 11th in a field of 21 in the 10m air pistol while Ruth Ricardo (363) occupied 15th.
Gonzales, Ricardo and Michaella Padilla were sixth out of seven in the team contest of the event. In the men’s side Carolino Gonzales scored 559, good for 10th spot in a roster of 14.
Source: gmanews.tv
-- Swimmer Miguel Molina was man enough to admit he’s not up to the task this time as far as his campaign for mints in the 25th Southeast Asian Games is concerned.
Molina said he isn't prepared now as he was two years ago when he won four gold medals and emerged as the Most Outstanding Male Athlete of the SEA Games.
That feat of him in Nakhonratchasima, Thailand was but among the few bright spots for Team Philippines then.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t see himself duplicating the same thing.
“I try not to think about it, but I just want to focus and be realistic with myself," he said minutes after departing with the main bulk of Team Philippines for this landlocked country located in the heart of the Indochinese peninsula.
“I think I can win maybe at least one, hopefully from (the) relay."
Molina is entered in the 200-meter individual medley, 400-meter individual medley, 200-meter breastroke, the 4x200 medley relay and the 200-meter freestyle, his pet event.
But the standout swimmer out of University of California-Berkeley said it’s the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China next year – and not the SEA Games –which he’s concentrating in right now.
“My main focus is the Asian Games. I’m not trying to overlook the SEA Games, but I think I had better training and was more prepared in the past. Maybe I feel a little uncertain in my performance right now," he said.
The 25-year-old Molina, who donned the country’s color in the Beijing Olympics last year, added that shortly after the World Championship in August, he took a month-long lay-off and didn’t begin training again until October.
It was around that time when he bagged a silver medal in the 3rd Asian Indoor Games in Hanoi, Vietnam, yielding the gold to Radomyos Matijur of Thailand in the 200-meter individual medley.
“I started training only last October. I started training on my own, but it wasn’t intense," said Molina.
“They can expect my best, but who knows where that will bring me. I can’t control other swimmers. You never know, someone must be training hard, someone must peak, you’ll never know," he added.
Source: Rey Bancod, mb.com.ph
-- The Philippines will compete in all but three events in swimming in the 25th Southeast Asian Games to underscore the depth and talent of its current roster.
Led by bemedalled Miguel Molina and Ryan Arabejo, the Filipinos are hoping to improve on their eight-gold showing in Thailand two years ago.
Molina, who won four gold medals, will see action in four individual and three relay events.
He will defend his titles in the 200 and 400-meter individual medleys, the 200-meter breastroke and the 4 x 100-meter medley event. He will also compete in the 200-meter freestyle and both freestyle relays.
Arabejo, who won three golds in 2007, will aim for a repeat in the 400-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle, tackle the 100 and 200-meter backstroke and help the team in the 4 x 200-meter freestyle relay.
Aside from Molina and Arabejo, the other returning defending champions are Daniel Coakley and James Walsh who are planing in from the United States where they are based.
Coakley, who won the 50-meter freestyle gold in Thailand, will concentrate on three freestyle events and the 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay.
Walsh, on the other hand, will lead the country’s drive in the butterfly events aside from the 4 x 100-meter medley.
Several junior standouts are making their Games debut. Jessie Khing Lacuna, only 15, heads the Brat Pack that also includes Jose Joaquin Gonzalez, Banjo Borja, Jasmine Ong and Jasmine Alkhadi.
Lacuna made waves during the National Short Course championships several days ago at home when he smashed the 20-year-old age-group record held by the now retired Eric Buhain. He clocked 1:50.47 in the 200-meter freestyle to better Buhain’s 1:56.81 mark in the 15-17 division.
