By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
John Chicano captured the gold medal in the 2024 Powerman Malaysia duathlon race in Dataran Putrajaya over the weekend.
Chicano, a double gold medalist at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, navigated the 10-kilometer run, 40km bike, 5km run endurance race in 2 hours, 41 minutes and 48 seconds to beat teammate John Patrick Ciron and dethrone last year’s champion Moysan Malo of France.
Ciron settled for the silver medal with a time of 2:47:15, while Malo crossed the finish line a few seconds later with 2:47:34 to settle for the bronze medal.
After checking in the same time with Ciron in the run leg, Chicano slowly pulled away in the bike leg and led by five minutes heading into the final run leg. He maintained his pace to finish two minutes faster than his previous time last year.
In the distaff side, Merry Joy Trupa bagged the bronze medal after clocking 3:19:17 behind gold medalist Rendy Williams of the United States, who timed 3:09:34, and hometown bet Esther Joy Hong Li Chen, who finished with 3:13:35 for the silver medal.
Sam Corpuz was four minutes slower to a podium finish and wound up fourth with 3:21:26.
