HANOI – On the eve of the opening ceremonies of the 31st Southeast Asian Games, the Philippines got its first gold of this year’s biennial meet courtesy of pencak silat to take fourth place in the medal tally.
Philippines at SEA Games May 11 wrapup
Francine Padios bagged the gold medal, with silvers by the Philippine men’s beach handball team, Sydney Tanconcian and Helen Aclopen of kurash and Olympian Cris Nievarez and CJ Jasmin of rowing also adding to the tally of the Philippines, which is now at fourth place in the medal tally with a 1-4-4 gold-silver-bronze tally.
The medals come heading into the opening ceremony to be held at the My Dinh National Stadium on Thursday night with pole vaulter EJ Obiena set to carry the Philippine flag in the parade of nations.
Vietnam is in first place with 10 golds, seven silvers, and nine bronzes, followed by Malaysia (8-2-6) and Indonesia (3-4-0) after the early events before the opening ceremony.
Padios dethroned Puspa Arum Sari of Indonesia for the gold by registering 9,960 points in the women’s seni (artistic) tunggal singles event final on Wednesday morning.
Aclopen bowed to To Thi Trang of Vietnam in the women’s 48 kilogram final while Tanconcian lost to Aye Aye Yung of Myanmar, 1-0, in the finals of the women’s +87 kilogram class, but not after impressive efforts in the preliminaries.
Nievarez and Jasmin placed second in the men’s lightweight double sculls with a time of seven minutes, 5.585 seconds, with Indonesia taking the gold with a time of 7:01.385.
Gina Iniong and Gretel Cordero advanced to the finals of their respective events in kickboxing as the Philippine women’s football team bowed to host Vietnam, 2-1, in Group A.
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