Early miscue ruins diver’s gold medal bid

LOS BANOS — Not even the presence of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo could buoy the Filipino divers gunning for the country’s fifth gold medal in the event.

Paying dearly for a faulty preliminary round effort, Zardo Domenios settled for a bronze medal yesterday, slowing down the Philippines’ golden rampage in diving in the 23rd Southeast Asian Games at the Trace Aquatics Center here.

"He (Domenios) made a mistake in the preliminary round, he could have taken the silver if not for that," said RP team coach Rommel Kong.

Arroyo made a surprise visit to this P60 million center along with son Datu, Philippine Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) chairman Ephraim Genuino and national training director Mike Keon to personally cheer for the Filipinos.

It wasn’t enough to carry Domenios through as the Filipino committed one huge mistake in the earlier rounds.

But Domenios, 19, showed a lot of fighting heart as he clawed back from sixth place among nine entries in the preliminary round to third after the finals by tallying 635.64 to take home his second bronze medal of the meet.

He was even trailing countryman Nino Carog, his partner in RP’s 3m springboard synchronized gold medal squad, at fourth in the penultimate round before unleashing a back 2-1/2 summersault, 1-1/2 twisting stunt that sealed the host nation’s lone diving medal of the day.

Yeoh Ken Nee of Malaysia topped the event with 676.41 for his second gold medal to go with a silver while Suchart Pichi of Thailand took the silver with 635.64.

Head-turner Leong Mun Yee later copped the 10m platform gold to seal for the Malaysians, who trained in China for more than a year, the overall lead going into today’s final day of diving competition with four gold, two silver and three bronze medals at stake.

The Philippines didn’t participate in this event. RP fell to No. 2 with four gold and two bronze medals but a victory in the women’s 1m springboard and men’s10-m platform today would clinch it the overall diving title.

"We’ll definitely go for two gold medals tomorrow (today)," said Kong.