NAKHON RATCHASIMA. — Team Philippines
relied on the golden efforts by a pair of polio victims
Tuesday and kept its precarious grip on fifth place in the 4th
Association of Southeast Asian Nations Para Games at His
Majesty the King’s 80th Anniversary Stadium here.
Josephine Medina, 37, downed countryman
Minnie de Ramos 11-4, 11-5, 11-4, 11-4, in the race-to-four
sets table tennis finals at the Surananaree University of
Technology campus to match her double gold medal effort in the
2005 Manila Para Games.
The golden performance came on a day after
Medina, the 1987 National Open champion, teamed up with the
one-armed 33-year-old De Ramos in topping the Open Class 6-10
section of women’s doubles.
Medina, who has a shorter left leg due to
polio, is scheduled to lead the RP team in the team events
late Tuesday and early Wednesday.
"I hope to win more gold medals," said
Medina, who is based in Marikina City but manages a farm in
Oas, Albay.
Another polio victim, 27-year-old Joel
Balatucal, ruled the discuss throw with a heave of
21.51-meters that gave him the gold and also broke the Para
Games record of 20.33-m set by RP’s Jerico Openia in Manila.
"I’m so happy I won, this is for the
Philippines," said an ecstatic Balatucal, who works as a
computer repairman in Novaliches.
Over at the Suranaree University of
Technology campus, Sander Severino and his band of gutsy chess
players looked headed to sweeping all four gold medals in the
men’s wheelchair/ambulant and visually impaired sections.
Spearheading the country’s defense of its
chess title, Severino, 22, and Henry Lopez, 27, downed
countrymen Joven Mailig and Alexis Elinon, respectively, to
share the lead after the third round with three points apiece.
Rudy Sarmiento, Abraham Peligro and Francis
Ching, for their part, downed Choo Min of Malaysia, Pham L. of
Vietnam and Raymond Tay of Singapore, respectively, to remain
in close pursuit of unbeaten Edy Suryanto of Indonesia.
The highest scorer after the seven-round
Swiss System event bags the gold while the cumulative scores
of the best three per each country will be added to determine
the team winner.
"We can’t afford to play complacent so I
told our players to win as much games as they can," said RP
team coach Grandmaster Joey Antonio.
At press time, the Philippines was running
fifth with five gold, nine silver and four bronze medals, a
few notches behind No. 4 Indonesia’s eight-gold, four-silver
and seven-bronze haul.
On their way to a third overall championship, the Thais
remained unreachable with a 67-29-29 (gold-silver-bronze)
harvest while the Malaysians and the Vietnamese were hotly
contesting second place with 23-21-10 and 19-19-12 hauls,
respectively.
