By REY C. LACHICA
HANGZHOU, China – For the third straight time, Fil-Canadian Kayla Sanchez failed in her medal bid, but consoled herself by breaking her own national record in the women’s 100-meter freestyle in the 19th Asian Games held at the Olympic Swimming Centre here on Tuesday, Sept. 26.
Although she owned the third best time in the qualification round, Sanchez could only finish fifth in the round that mattered most which was won by Hong Kong’s Bernadette Haughey in a new meet record of 52.17.
Chinese Yang Junxuan and Cheng Yujie finished second and third, respectively, while Japanese Nagisa Ikemoto wound up fourth on 54.27.
Sanchez’s time of 54.69 bettered her own PH mark of 54.70 she established in the qualifying round early in the day.
Xiandi Chua also failed in her own medal bid, placing seventh in the women’s 200m backstroke final with a time of 2:13.63.
The pleasant news were the victories of Olympian Carlo Paalam, rising tennis star Alex Eala, Gilas Pilipinas and the men’s 3×3 team.
With Sanchez’s failure to deliver in her pet event, Team PH remained stuck in the medal board with just two bronze medals to show.
Showing the form that earned for himself a silver medal in the Tokyo Summer Games, Paalam romped to a 5-0 win over Jordanian Abu Jajkeh Mohammed.
The Jordanian scored several clean shots to Paalam’s head and body but the pride of Cagayan de Oro fighter was the more superior fighter as he used his speed and lightning jabs to pile up more points.
Eala also marched into the quarters but not after enduring a fierce challenge from Indian Rutuja Bhosale, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.
It took Eala over 70 minutes to seal the first set, but after that, she was in cruise control, coming through with shots as beautiful as her to finally disarm her Indian rival.
She later teamed up with Ruben Gonzales in clobbering their Nepalese rivals, 6-0, 6-0.
Equally impressive was Gilas which fired a strong warning with an 89-61 demolition of Bahrain — thanks to Justin Brownlee, who sparked the team’s decisive second quarter breakaway.
Ange Kouame, the other naturalized player for Gilas apart from Brownlee, tallied 15 points tied CJ Perez for the second best scorer after Brownlee erupted for 20.
The 3×3 team trounced Chinese Taipei, 17-12.
And the reigning women’s street skateboarding titlist Margielyn Didal?
Though she produced some difficult tricks, she was obviously not in her best form as she finished only sixth overall after the qualifying round.
Still, Didal managed to squeeze herself into the final round of the contest that also saw two Chinese and a pair of Japanese bets make it to the final round with little trouble.
Didal, however, needs to raise her level of game several notches if she is to upstage her two Chinese rivals – Zheng Wnghui and Cuio Chenxi – who tallied best scores of 69.15 and 66.36, respectively.
Even the two Japanese bets performed much better, getting impressive grades of 64.26 and 53.96.
Didal, who suffered a left ankle injury late last year that required operation, could do no better than 41.53. Renzo Mark Feliciano also made it to the final round after placing 7th in the qualifying round.
The finals of both the men’s and women’s divisions will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 26.
Taekwondo bets also fell like dominoes as Baby Jessica Canabal dropped her quarterfinal match against Uzbek Charoz Kayumoba in the women’s -53kg class.
She made it to the quarters after beating Japanese Yuzoko Katoh, 2-1, but Joseph Chua and Jubilee Briones were shown the door early and so were the judokas.
Eve Ross Villarin, also known as the NoobFromPh, suffered three straight defeats in Street Fighter V competitions at the Hangzhou Esports Center.
On Wednesday, the Philippine Sibol team of Robert de Guzman saw action in the Dream Three Kingdoms 2 event.
Joining him in their duel with the Uzbeks are Manjean Faldas, Mark Jison, Caisam Nopueto, Shinboo Ponferrada and John To in their clash with Uzbekistan.
Judokas Dylwynn Gimena and Carl Dave Aseneta likewise absorbed crushing defeats to their rivals, toughened by years of intense training.
Gimena, 27, vowed to Khuslen Otgonbayar of Mongolia via ippon in the Round of 16 of the women’s -78-kilogram class while Aseneta, 26, fell prey to Won Jonghoon of South Korea also via ippon in the Round of 16 of the men’s -100-kg event.
