Cruz takes taekwondo bronze

Veteran internationalist Roberto Cruz of the Petron Philippine taekwondo team sparkled anew by bagging the finweight bronze medal in the recent 15th world taekwondo championships held at the Halla gymnasium in Jeju City, South Korea.

Winner of six consecutive Southeast Asian Games gold medals since 1991, Cruz hurdled his taller rivals in the elimination rounds and quarterfinals but fell to eventual champion Choi of Korea, 3-6, in the semifinals.

Cruz opened his bid with an impressive 8-1 victory over Romania’s Lazar. Then he toppled Thailand’s Panprom, 7-4, and Greece’s Zikos, 7-2, before subduing Canada’ss Roy, 3-1, in the quarterfinals.

Two other members of the Petron RP squad – flyweight Tshomlee Go and finweight Eva Marie Ditan – reached the quarterfinals of the tourney which drew the best taekwondo-jins from 94 countries.

Go beat Greece’s Gouroufidis, 6-4, Chinese-Taipei’s Huang, 7-5, and Puerto Rico’s Licier, 12-8, in the preliminaries but lost to eventual gold medalist Kanjobeh of Iran, 4-7.

Ditan ousted Belgium’s Peeters, 8-3, and France’s Oliveros, 13-1, before dropping a close 2-4 decision to Venezuela’s Contreras in the quarterfinals.

"The team performed well considering the tough field," noted delegation head Sung Chong Hong. The other officials – team manager Dr. Noli Gabriel and coaches Noel Veneracion and Jobet Morales – echoed Hong’s view.

The other RP campaigners were Jefferthom Go and Jasmin Strachan, banatamweight; Daleen Cordero, flyweight; Veronica Domingo and Alex Briones, lightweight; Sally Solis and Mark Rivero, welterweight; Kalindi Tamayo, featherweight and Margarita Bonifacio, middleweight.