By MARK REY MONTEJO
It’s now five down and one to go for the Philippine Para Team after swimmer Angel Otom settled for fifth place in the women’s 50m butterfly-S5 final round at the Paris La Defense Arena Saturday, Sept. 7 (Manila time).
Otom, 21, clocked an impressive 45.78 seconds in the 8-player finals and though it was faster than her time of 46.85 in the qualifiers it wasn’t good enough to land her in the podium.
Her idol, Lu Dong, was fantastic, setting a world mark of 38.17 to lead a 1-2 finish by Chinese bets with Turkey’s Sevilay Ozturk (43.70) snaring the bronze medal.
Before barging into the final stage, the armless wonder of Olongapo finished third in her heat and fifth overall.
The UP standout also came short for a medal in 50m backstroke-S5 where she ended up sixth place with a time of 44 seconds and while Chinese Dong topped the said event as well.
Apart from Otom, other PH bets who tried but failed were swimmer Ernie Gawilan, archer Agustina Bantiloc, racer Jerrold Mangliwan, and taekwondo jin Allain Ganapin.
The country’s only to hope for a medal is through javelin thrower Cendy Asusano who will vie in the women’s javelin throw-F54 later Saturday.
Table tennis great Josephine Medina was the last PH athlete to win a medal – bronze – during the 2016 Rio edition in the single class 8 category.
As expected, China is leading the way in the medal race with 83 golds, 64 silvers and 41 bronzes followed by Great Britain (42-34-24), USA (31-36-19), the Netherlands (24-14-10), Italy (20-13-30), host France (17-24-24), Brazil (17-22-31), Ukraine (16-23-28), Australia (16-13-23) and Japan (12-10-15).
