HANGZHOU - Patrick Perez put Team Philippines on the medal board of the 19th Asian Games on Sunday behind his fine form in taekwondo poomsae.
The jin from De La Salle bagged a bronze in the men's individual event to save the country from a shutout on the day action in the quadrennial showpiece went full blast.
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Perez, also a gold winner in the same event of the Southeast Asian Games, made it to the semifinals, but lost out to Ma Yun Zhong of Chinese Taipei.
Nonetheless, the bronze was good enough to place the Philippines at No. 15 in the medal tally by the end of the day.
The host nation was quick to zoom to the top with a total of 20 gold medals, followed by South Korea with five and Japan together with Macao with two golds each.
Uzbekistan and Chinese Taipei were the two other countries to snatch a gold medal.
Two potential medal winners slipped through the hands of the Filipinos.
The women's 4x100 meter relay featuring Fil-Canadian Kayla Sanchez, finished only fifth in swimming competitions at the Olympic Sports Centre, while Agatha Wong failed to replicate her podium finish the last time in Palembang, Indonesia when she could only finished fourth in the women's taijiquan and taijijian final with a total output of 19.456 points at the Xiaoshan Guali Sports Centre.
Olympian Irish Magno also had an early exit in women's boxing, so did judoka Shugen Nakano.
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