Patafa posts best showing in decades

NAGOYA – EJ Obiena soared in the rain. John Cabang Tolentino ran through injury. Victoria Bossong ran fearless in her debut. And Philippine athletics came home with its best Asian Games in 40 years.

The national track and field team wrapped up the 20th Asian Games with a productive haul – a gold from Obiena in pole vault and bronzes from Bossong in the women’s 800m and Cabang Tolentino in the men’s 110m hurdles.

It’s the best Asiad showing in athletics for the Philippines since Lydia de Vega won the century dash and got the silver in the 200m in 1986 in Seoul.

“The work over the last few years is beginning to pay off in that we are learning how to win or podium in events of this magnitude and scale,” said PATAFA president Terry Capistrano.

“The future looks bright with the podium finish of Victoria Bossong and John Cabang Tolentino,” Capistrano said. “They are young and extremely determined. Very purposeful.”

The performance drew high praise from Philippine Sports Commission Chairman Patrick Gregorio, who made special mention of Capistrano and his leadership.

“You will rarely see a sports leader who has the resources, management expertise, passion to excel and precious time for his athletes and association,” Gregorio said.

Capistrano said the next step is to build around the new medalists.

“We’ve been concentrating on EJ the previous years, now we also concentrate on these two. We’ll build a team around them,” he said.

He also highlighted Yacine Guermali, whose strong run in the 5000m showed the Philippines now has depth in events once dominated by regional powerhouses.

“I think with Bossong, Cabang and Yacine, we have a pretty formidable team plus of course EJ,” Capistrano said. “If we talk about the SEA Games, we’ll be fine and we’ll be competitive in other bigger tournaments as well.”