Filipinos reign supreme in archery

SUBIC—The Philippines capped its stint in archery Sunday with two more gold medals courtesy of the women's team compound and men's team recurve.

Amaya Paz and Jennifer Chan formed a formidable quartet with Abigail Tindugan and Jennifer Tabaniag and crushed the Indonesians, 236-226, in the team compound.

It was a fitting follow-up to another gold the Filipino archers won in the men's recurve after Marvin Cordero, Mark Javier, Florante Matan and Cocoy Cobilla also defeated the Indonesians.

Myanmar took the bronze in the women's compound at the expense of Singapore while Malaysia downed Myanmar, 235-225, also for the bronze.

The Filipino men's recurve team engaged the Indons in a shoot off after tying the score at 235 after three rounds of the 27-arrow, 70-meter discipline. Matan, Javier and Cordero had an aggregate score of 25 points to beat Indonesia's 24 in the extra round.

Counting the gold of Paz in the women's individual recurve, the Philippines captured the overall championship at the end of archery competitions with a three-two-two, gold-silver-bronze medal haul.

Malaysia fell short of a bronze to at least tie the hosts after winning three golds, two silvers and one bronze. Indonesia got two golds, four silvers and one bronze.

Earl Benjamin Yap, Adam Jimenez, Gil Gabriel and Itus Carag dropped their final match against the Malaysians led by individual compound gold medalist Lang Hon Keong and settled for bronze in the men's team compound.

In canoe-kayak, Jeremiah Tambor and John Oliver Victorio made a breakthrough finish for the Philippine canoe-kayak team by grabbing a silver on the final day of the canoe-kayaking competitions at the Malawaan fishing area here.

Indonesia's Roinadi and Asnawir snared the gold in men's canoe 2 with a time of one minute and 48 seconds while the tandem of Tambor and Victorio completed the 500-meter paddle in 1'49”60.

Myanmar's Aung Lin and Win Htike copped the bronze after checking a fraction of second later. (1'49”85).

``Aside from the homecourt edge, we really trained hard for this. But it's really surprising considering the strong opposition in the sport,'' said headcoach Len Escalante.

Paddlers from Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand were trained by European coaches and are at least 7-10 years older than the Filipinos on the average.

Escalante discovered Tambor, 19, and the 17-year-old Victorio while the team was in deep training at the Manggahan Floodway in Taytay, Rizal.

Victorio and Tambor poured everything in the final 150 meters and overtook Lin and Htike in the last 50.

It was the best finish for the Filipino paddlers since joining the biennial games in 1997 and since Carmelito Dacasin won the bronze in the 1,000-meter men's canoe 1 in Vietnam two years ago.

Besides the silver, Norwell Cajes and Marvin Aposta also pitched in a pair of bronzes after the men's canoe 1 (C1) and kayak 1 (K1) finals.

Myanmar's Phone Myint Tayzar won the gold in the K2 men (1'46”47) while Sayadin of Indonesia settled for the silver after one minute and 47 seconds.

Nguyen Duc Canh of Vietnam won the gold in the C1 men after clocking one minute and 59 seconds, just a second ahead of silver-medalist Yuyu Fernando of Indonesia.


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