Philippines Para bets earn silver, bronze

MANILA, Philippines — After a two-gold haul in the first two days, Team Philippines slowed down with a one-silver, one-bronze medal take in the Asian Para Games in Jakarta, Indonesia yesterday.

Josephine Medina fashioned out a pair of three-set victories in the quarterfinals and semis but dropped an 8-11, 3-11, 6-11 setback to Chinese Mao Jingdian in their clash for the table tennis gold in women’s singles TT 8 at the ECovention Ancol.

The Filipina veteran, a gold medal prospect, earlier subdued Thai Kanlaya Kriabklang, 11-7, 11-6, 14-12, then held off Huang Wenjuan of China, 17-15, 12-10, 11-6, to seal a gold medal duel with Mao, who beat Korean Koh Duk Ja, 11-6, 11-5, 11-4, and Japanese Yuri Tomono, 11-3, 11-5, 11-3.

Godfrey Taberna, meanwhile, settled for bronze in men’s road race (C4) event of cycling at the Sentul International Circuit.

Taberna clocked 2:11:24.359, finishing behind gold medalist Guoping Wei of China and Najib Mohd of Malaysia.

The Philippines has so far posted a 2-3-3 medal tally for 12th place in the 44-country field halfway through the continental meet.

Swimmer Ernie Gawilan delivered the first-ever gold medal for Team Phl Sunday, rulling the men’s 200m individual medley SM7 category while bowler Kim Ian Chi notched the country’s second gold by topping the mixed singles TPB10 event Monday.