Boxing Philippines last golden hope

Ladon guns for country’s best mark in 56 years

JAKARTA  — Bloodied but unbowed.

Despite a cut on the brow and a gash on the nose, Rogen Ladon fought with an admirable courage and scored a neat disposal of Thai rival Yuttapong Tongdee to make the boxing flyweight final and provide Team Philippines a crack at its best showing in the Asian Games in 56 years.

Two other shots at the gold-medal bouts missed the target as light fly Carlo Paalam and middleweight Eumir Marcial dropped a pair of 2-3 split decisions.

Paalam and Marcial settled for bronze medals,  raising the contingent’s medal output to four gold, one silver and 15 bronze with one full day of action to go before curtains fall in the games.

Ladon returns to the ring today for what could well be the defining moment of his fight career.

“Kaya yan. Para sa bayan eh, matigas ang mukha natin,” said Ladon, optimistic he could buck his cuts through his final bout against Uzbek Jasurbek Latipov today and improve the country’s four-gold haul courtesy of weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, the Yuka Saso-led women’s golf team and skateboarder Margie Didal.

For the record, since Team Phl collected seven gold, six silver and 25 bronze medals in the previous editions of the Asian Games here in 1962, the country has never had a haul of more than four golds in the next 13 editions of the quadrennial continental games.

The 272-strong Phl contingent in the Jakarta/Palembang Games could well rewrite history as Ladon vowed to go all out to claim the flyweight crown.

In his hands rests the country’s chance to beat Southeast Asian rivals Vietnam (4-15-18) and Singapore (4-4-12) in their neck-and-neck fight in the medal tally.

In the late hours of the Jakarta/Palembang Games, China (117-84-60), Japan (68-50-70) and Korea (43-54-63) – no surprise – were the runaway top three in the leader board. Indonesia (30-23-40) was cinch for fourth overall, way in front of two other Southeast Asian teams in Thailand (10-14-45) and Malaysia (6-12-14).

The Villadolid, Negros Occidental native put up a masterful showing against Tongdee for a unanimous decision cheered on by the Filipino crowd.

But cheers turned to tears on the announcement of verdicts on the fights of Paalam and Marcial.

Paalam lost a virtual bar room brawl against the Indian Commonwealth Games silver medalist Amit.

A bitter pill to swallow for the Filipinos was Marcial’s loss to Uzbek Israil Madrimov.

Through Marcial’s bout with Madrimov, the Uzbeks were 7-of-7 in the 18th Asian Games semifinals here. Incidentally, the international boxing federation is headed by Uzbek Gafur Rakhimov.

Over in Palembang, Filipina triathletes Kim Mangrobang and Kim Kilgroe made decent finishes inside the top 10. Men’s bet Nikko Huelgas and John Chicano take their turn to compete in the event today.

The Philippines swept its first two matches against Laos, 2-1,  and Pakistan, 2-1, to assure itself of a quarterfinal slot in the soft tennis’s men’s team event at the Jakabaring Sports City Courts.

Relying on the troika of Joseph Arcilla, younger brother of  former national player Johnny Arcilla, and Mark Anthony Alcoseba and Noel Damian Jr., the Filipinos outclassed the Laotians and Pakistanis in Group A.

They played the Koreans later on Friday. A victory would send the Nationals to the semifinals, while a loss would pit them against the Taiwanese in the round of-eight on Saturday.

The women’s squad, meanwhile, bowed out of the team event after absorbing identical 0-3 losses to China and Chinese-Taipei, respectively, in its group.  

Hermie Macaranas and Ojay Fuentes finished third in the preliminaries to advance to the final of canoe’s 200-meter men’s doubles.

The Filipinos clocked 41.441 seconds in finishing behind China (38.473) and Kazakhstan (38.762) in Heat 1 of the five-team event.

Uzbekistan (38.084), Indonesia (41.221) and Iran (41.596) finished 1-2-3 in Heat 2 to also advance to the medal race.

The final is set at 9 a.m. (10 a.m. in Manila) today.

The event is the Philippine Canoe Kayak Dragon Boat Federation’s last chance at a medal after failing in traditional boat race’s 200, 500 and 1000 meters last week.

“The boys will keep on fighting. The opposition is tough, but we’ll see tomorrow,” coach Len Escollante said.