Flying marks for tracksters

Manila, Philippines — Filipino tracksters emerged as the most productive members of the triumphant Team Philippines in the 30th Southeast Asian Games, collaring 30 medals overall spiked by 11 golds and a slew of record-breaking performances.

“We’re very satisfied with this performance,” said Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association president Philip Ella Juico.

The athletics bets’ 11 triumphs were surpassed only by arnis, which struck with a Philippine contingent-high 14 first-place finishes.

“We exceeded our target and hit 11 golds, and we’re the Olympic sport with the most number of golds,” said Juico.

After athletics, dancesport accounted for 10 first-place finishes while taekwondo and boxing colllected eight and seven, respectively.

“We have established new Philippine and SEA Games records and in fact last Monday the  (women’s) 200-meter record was broken twice by Kristina Knott, in the heat and in the finals,” he said.

Knott and Olympian Eric Shauwn Cray ruled two events to banner the squad’s 11-8-11 (gold-silver-bronze) spree.

Knott and 400m hurdles champ Cray teamed up with Eloiza Luzon and Anfernee Lopena in dominating the mixed 4x100m relay and were joined in the honor roll by record-setting pole vaulter EJ Obiena, shot putter William Morrison, pole vaulter Natalie Uy, marathoner Christine Hallasgo, javelin thrower Melvin Calano, heptathlete Sarah Dequinan, decathlete Aries Toledo and 110m hurdles specialist Clinton Bautista.

“This is the result of our focused coaching and full-time training approach. We had them quartered from April to August in Lingayen before transferring to New Clark City. We focused on them, giving them all the support – strength and conditioning  equipment, nutrition and exposure abroad to get them used to pressure,” said Juico.

He said they only enlisted those considered “reasonable prospects.”

“In the SEA Games level, we can’t just open doors to any Tom Dick and Harry. We have to find people with ‘reasonable prospects of winning’ or ‘reasonable prospects of advancing further’ and be consistently supporting them. Otherwise it will be similar to what happened in 2005, we placed No. 1 but fell hard in 2007,” he said.

After the SEAG on home soil, the tracksters are setting their sights on the 2020 Olympics.

Only Obiena has qualified for the Tokyo meet so far but Juico said they are looking at Knott and Morrison to possibly make it, too. He said Cray will also  give it another try after his rather slow 50.21-second performance in the SEAG.