Comaling dyes hair gold then seizes golden moment

SUBIC MANILA, Philippines — Michael Ver Anton Comaling had a dream last week prompting him to dye his hair gold.

Yesterday, the 19-year-old sensation turned his vision into reality after ruling the men’s beach individual triathle event of the 30th SEA Games modern pentathlon competitions at the Subic Bay Boardwalk here.

Sporting a blue-colored hairstyle before the biennial meet opener, Comaling paired his newly minted hue with a fitting gold medal after covering the shoot-swim-run 10 seconds clear of his closest chasers.

Comaling, an Ormoc City-native, clocked 17 minutes and 8.87 seconds to win the Olympic sport making its debut in the SEA Games. Thailand’s Phurit Yohuang (17:19.83) and Muhammad Taufik (17:37.36) of Indonesia claimed the silver and bronze, respectively.

“It was just a vision last week. I was nervous then I had a dream of winning the gold so I dyed my hair gold. It panned out to be true so I’m very blessed and thankful,” said Comaling, bouncing back from a mere seventh-place finish in the men’s individual beach laser-run event the other day.

“I learned my lesson from that loss. I moved on from that defeat and focused on winning this which I did,” added Comaling whose teammate Dexter Ardemer settled for seventh.

Comaling’s gold-medal win was the second for the Philippine modern pentathlon team after the duo of Samuel German and Princess Arbilon claimed the beach laser mixed relay event title the other day.

In women’s division, Arbilon pocketed a bronze medal with a time of 21:29.36. Indonesia’s Dea Salsabila Putri (19:52.73) and and Cintya Nariska (20:02.02) finished one-two.