PH finishes 19th in Asian Games, female talents stand out
Bagging 21 medals, the Philippines finished 19th in the recently concluded 18th Asian Games in Indonesia.
Despite placing behind other Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Singapore, PH was able to improve its showing from its 22nd overall ranking in the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea. What spelled the difference between this campaign and the last one? It’s the Filipina athletes who took charge and showed the world what they can do.
The Philippines won four (4) gold medals in the Asian Games – three more than what we got in Incheon. All of them were won by female athletes.
Weightlifting champion Hidilyn Diaz was the first one to win a gold for the country. She earned it through the clean and jerk category by lifting 115 kgs, stunning her rival Kristina Shermatova of Turkmenistan. Shermatova already denied the Filipina a gold in last year’s world championship but did poorly trying to lift 116 kgs to top Hidilyn’s 115 kgs.
Diaz lifted a total of 207 kgs, 92 kgs in the snatch and 115 kgs in the clean and jerk, edging Shermatova’s 206 kgs.
“I learned I won the gold when she had a bad lift in her third attempt and my coaches started to jump for joy,” Diaz said.
The second gold medal for the Philippines was won by 17-year-old Yuka Saso in golf women’s individual. In the same event, fellow Pinay golfer Bianca Pagdanganan won the bronze medal.
Saso together with Bianca Pagdanganan and Lois Go also won another gold medal by teaming up in the golf women’s team event, besting South Korea and China that won silver and bronze, respectively.
Perhaps the most inspiring story in the Asian Games for the Philippines was Margielyn Arda Didal winning the gold medal for the women’s skateboarding street event. A daughter of a carpenter and sidewalk vendor, and former street kid from Cebu, Didal blew the competition away by posting a top score of 30.4 points in her Asian Games debut. Japan’s Isa Kaya got 25.0 points to settle for silver, while Indonesia’s 12-year-old Nyimas Bunga got 19.8 points for the bronze medal.
