Filipino curlers enter Asian Winter Games semis

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines, with brothers Marc and Enrico Pfister as spearheads, sank powerhouse Japan, 10-4, on Thursday to barge into curling’s men’s team semifinals of the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China.

The Filipino curlers, who also have Christian Haller and Alan Frei, needed a strong finish, scoring six points in the last two ends to turn an early 3-2 deficit into a stunning win over Japan’s Ryo Aoki, Haruki Watanabe, Ayumu Hemmi and Osuke Miya.

It sent the tropical country straight to the semis, where they will battle the great wall of China Thursday night.

There, the Nationals will have two chances of delivering the country a historic medal in the quadrennial meet — beat the Chinese to ensure themselves of at least a silver or, if they succumb to the hosts, they could snare one in the battle for the bronze Friday.

And the team, as well as millions of Filipinos back home, is praying they would finally deliver after close brushes at a medal by the other delegation members in other fronts.

It included figure skaters Isabella Gamez and Russian-born naturalized Filipino Aleksandr Korovin, who wound up fourth in the mixed pair free skating medal round Wednesday night.

The pair scored 155.62, which wasn’t enough for a podium finish as Uzbekistan (176.43), North Korea (168.88) and Japan (168.35) took the gold, silver and bronze, respectively.

“It’s just the nerves that really caught up to me. I just wanted to represent our flag so much and be strong, but mentally I wasn’t there,” said Gamez. “So that’s what we need to improve for us to be successful and raise our Philippine flag.” 

Same with Cathryn Limketkai and Sofia Lexi Jacque Frank, who ended up ninth and 12^th with a 91.91 and 76.50, respectively, in the women’s singles’ free skating medal round topped by South Korean Kim Chaeyeon (147.56).

The stinging losses thus left Paolo Borromeo as the last Filipino standing in figure skating as he will compete in the men’s singles free skating finals Thursday night.