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.