By REY C. LACHICA
HANGZHOU, China – Carlo Paalam kissed his medal bid goodbye when he ran into a classy fighter from Uzbekistan on Tuesday, Oct. 3, in the quarterfinals of the men’s 57-kilogram class in the 19th Asian Games here.
Being considered as one of the gold medal hopefuls, Paalam’s 5-0 beating at the hands of Abdulmalik Khalokov of Uzbekistan was a big blow to Team PH’s bid to duplicate its 4-gold haul in the Jakarta edition five years ago.
Living up to his lofty billing, Khalokov put up a masterclass performance, taunting Paalam with his fancy moves after building enough points early on.
The stats sheet underscored how good is Khalolov.
With his excellent footwork and height advantage, Khalolov also made Paalam an easy target, tagging the Tokyo Games silver medalist with crisp combinations that were too quick and too fast to win the contest convincingly.
Paalam took the loss in stride, saying: “Hindi ako nagsisisi dahil ginawa ko ang lahat.”
He can also took solace from the fact that he waged a determined challenged against one of the world’s finest fighters. He tumbled several in his desperate effort to turn the table on his favor.
“Kita niyo naman, nag-ubusan kami ng talino dahil world champion nga sya,” added the pride of Cagaya de Oro who won his Olympic silver medal in the lighter weight of 54kg.
The defeat left Eumir Marcial, a bronze medal winner in the Tokyo Games, as the last man standing for the PH boxing team.
Marcial, who strung up four wins as as pro in the US since his impressive Tokyo Games, is seeking a final berth against Syrian Ahmad Ghousoon in their 80-kilogram semis showdown on Wednesday, Oct. 4.
Apart from Gilas’ pulsating 84-83 win over Iran ealry in the day, the only good news for the day was the bronze medal win of the sepak takraw team.
The PH bets absorbed 21-15, 241-15, 17-19 loss to the Indons in their semis showdown but it was enough to salvage the bronze medal.
So going into the final five days of the continental showpiece, Team PH slipped from 18th to 20th place with 1-1-9 tally.
Host nation, as expected, continued to pull away with 156 gold, 85 silver and 44 bronze medals.
