MANILA – Four Western Visayas-based boxers are set to fight for gold medals in the 32nd Southeast Asian Games boxing this Saturday at the Chroy Changvar Center Hall G in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Bago City, Negros Occidental’s Rogen Ladon reached the flyweight division finals after a 4-1 win over Malaysian Muhammad Abdul Qaiyum in the semifinals. He will face Thai Thanarat Saengphet in the gold medal game.
Ian Clark Bautista of Binalbagan City, Negros Occidental also reached the finals of the featherweight division after a 5-0 win over Naing Latt of Myanmar. He will face Indonesian Asri Udin.
Iloilo’s Irish Magno is also in the finals of the women’s 54-kilogram category against Thai fighter Jutapas Jitapong, and Bacolod City’s Riza Pasuit will vie for the women’s 63-kilogram gold against Tih Linh Ha of Vietnam.
Other Filipino boxers who reached the gold medal game of their respective weight divisions are Carlo Paalam, Paul Julyfer Bascon, siblings Nesthy and Norlan Petecio and John Marvin.
The only Pinoy casualty was Markus Cezar Tongco, who lost to Manh Cuong Nguyen of Vietnam in the men’s heavyweight semifinals via referee stoppage, and settled for the bronze medal.
Meanwhile, Agatha Wong took home her fifth SEA Games gold medal after ruling the women’s wushu taijijian + taijiquan event after a combined score of 19.263 points–9.683 points in the taijijian and 9.58 points in taijiquan event.
Team Philippines also got four bronze medals in wushu courtesy of Carlos Baylon in men’s sanda 56-kilogram, Russel Diaz in men’s sanda 52-kilogram, Jenifer Kilapio in women’s sanda 48-kilogram and Sandrix Gainsan in men’s jianshu + qiangshu event.
Eric Shaun Cray ruled the men’s 400m hurdles for the sixth straight time on Thursday after clocking 50.03 seconds to easily beat Natthapon Dansungnoen of Thailand (50.73) and Calvin Quek of Singapore (50.75).
Sarah Dequinan added a silver medal in athletics after placing second in women’s heptathlon, Ronne Malipay also had a silver in men’s triple jump, while Mark Harry Diones had a bronze in men’s triple jump.
Fencer Noelito Jose, women’s hurdler Robyn Brown, Kristian Narca in kun khmer, Philippine women’s cricket team and the women’s team in esports’ mobile legends bang bang fell short of delivering golds as they settled for silver medal finishes.
Finishing with bronze medals were Jasmine Alkhaldi in women’s 50-meter butterfly, Francisco dela Cruz in billiards caroms event, Jylyn Nicanor in fencing and national women’s badminton team./PN
