Hosts the Philippines on Friday made off with all of the obstacle course gold at the Southeast Asian Games with wins in the men’s and women’s 5km category.
Mervin Guarte and Sandi Abahan jumped, swung and clambered their way to victory in the 20-obstacle race in Manila, completing a six-out-of-six haul for the home team in the event’s SEA Games debut.
Philippine racers Sherwin Managil and Glorien Merisco took both silvers in the outdoor event at Filinvest City, which included a balance beam, tilting ladder, monkey bar and a slip wall covered in water.
Photo: AFP
About 8,750 athletes and officials are taking part in the regional Olympics spread across dozens of venues in the northern Philippines, which was hit by a deadly typhoon earlier this week.
The marathon kicked off the athletics program at the Games’ main hub in New Clark City, where Filipina runner Christine Hallasgo caused a major upset by edging compatriot Mary Joy Tabal to take gold.
Hallasgo pulled away in the final stretch to beat the reigning SEA Games champion by two minutes in 2 hours, 56 minutes, 56 seconds.
Indonesian Prayogo Agus won the men’s race with a time of 2:26:48, ahead of Thailand’s Namkhet Sanchai (2:27:18) and Malaysia’s Mohamad Muhaizar (2:33:08).
The 11-country Games, featuring a record 56 sports, were rocked by Typhoon Kammuri which forced about half of Tuesday’s events to be rescheduled.
Despite 13 deaths in the storm, none of the athletes, officials or 12,000 volunteers was reported hurt and a full program resumed on Wednesday.
Later on Friday, Olympic champion Joseph Schooling was to return to the pool in his bid to rebound from a disappointing silver in the 50m butterfly.
Schooling, who won six gold at the last Games in 2017, lost his 50m title to fellow Singaporean Teong Tzen Wei late on Thursday.
Just eight months from the Tokyo Olympic Games, Schooling, 24, hoped to hit back in his prefered 100m butterfly — which he famously won ahead of Michael Phelps at the Rio Summer Olympic Games in 2016.
Six more golds were up for grabs on Friday at the aquatics center in New Clark City, the Games’ main hub north of Manila, including the women’s 200m freestyle and women’s 3m springboard diving.
The Philippines remained in firm control of the medals table on Friday with 67 golds — well up on its 2017 total of 24.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed