Rosales, Wang show grace, power under pressure

KUALA LUMPUR (Via Globe Telecoms) — Former world champion Mark Rosales and former world silver medallist Willie Wang demonstrated grace and staying power in a glowing performance in the ancient Chinese art of wushu and put some sheen on the fading Philippine performance in other sports in the 21st Southeast Asian Games yesterday.

Rosales, gold medallist in the 1999 world championships in Italy, scored 9.33 to beat Malaysian Lim Kim (9.31) and Myanmar’s U Pyi Wai Phye (9.26) in the gunshu (cudgel play) event of wushu.

"The other athletes from other countries are good, that’s why I had to put in my very best to win the gold," said Rosales, 24.

Rosales, a high school graduate, and Lim were actually even on the scorecard of four judges (9.35-9.3-9.3-9.4) and he won it only with the slimmest of margins on the scorecard of the fifth judge who saw it 9.35-9.3 for the Filipino.

Wang, silver medallist I the 1999 world championships in Hong Kong, shared gold medal honors in the quiangshu (spearplay) event with Malaysian Oh Poh Soon on identical scores of 9.33 (9.35-9.35-9.3-9.25-9.40). The lowest and highest scores are cancelled out in determining the average score of a competitor.

She won the bronze in the jianshu event a day earlier.

"I did my best. It’s an honor for me to be part of the RP team and I want to return the honor to the Philippines," said Wang.

The only dent on wushu’s performance was the eighth place finish, among eight participants, of 13-year-old Janice Hung in the women’s quiangshu competition. May Lim was fifth in women’s gunshu.

The twin golds upped the Philippine wushu experts’ gold-silver-bronze medal haul to 2-1-1 counting the silver medal wins of Lily So in the nanquan event Sunday and Wang’s bronze in the jianshu competition.

Julian Camacho, the Philippine contingent’s deputy chief of mission and president of the Wushu Federation of the Philippines, pledged a bonus of P15,000, P10,000 and P5,000 to the gold-silver-bronze medallists in wushu.

"I’m proud of their performance. I know they can do it," he said. — Gerry Carpio