Pinoys put up good show in paralympics

Even the differently abled Filipino athletes and their counterparts in collegiate sports contributed in making 2006 a modestly successful year for Philippine sports.

Less than a week before the 15th Asian Games unfurled in Doha, Qatar where Team Philippines brought home four gold, six silver and nine bronze medals, a small contingent of 40 athletes and officials took part in the Asian Paralympic Games and went home with a pair of gold medals, the best in the country’s participation in the quadrennial conclave.

Shortly after the Asiad, Filipino swimmers, who competed in the 13th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) University Games, collected five gold medals courtesy of backstroker Luica Dacanay and Kendrick Uy.

The country’s campaign in the Asian Paragames also netted five silver and 10 bronze medals that surpassed the 2002 delegation’s pair of silver and an equal number of bronze medals.

The gold medalists were pentathlete Juanito Mingarine and swimmer Daniel Damaso.

Wheelchair-bound Mingarine beat all comers in capturing the gold in the five-event pentathlon while Damaso clocked 5 minutes and 56 seconds in annexing the 400m freestyle for men over rivals from 47 countries.

"It was our best performance so far in the meet previously known as the Far East and Pacific Paralympic Games," Philippine Sports Association for Differently Abled (Philspada) president and former sports commissioner Mike Barredo said during yesterday’s SCOOP weekly session at the Kamayan Restaurant-Padre Faura.

Also present during the public service session sponsored by ACCEL and Teletech was Philspada vice president Luis Arellano.

"We actually won medals in all the events we competed in. And I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank those who supported us, especially the Philippine Sports Commission, Pagcor, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the SM Group," the visually impaired Barredo said.

Dacanay and Uy, both UP students who were also at SCOOP session, accounted for all of the country’s five-gold medal harvest in the biennial Asean University meet.

Dacanay, a home economics student, bested her rivals in topping the 50-meter and 100-meter backstroke. She broke the Philippine record in the 50-back with a time of 31.61 seconds, improving on her previous 31.76 clocking.

Uy was the most bemedalled Filipino campaigner with three, copping the gold in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle.

He teamed up with Timmy Chua, Jeff Laguito and Evan Grabador to rule the 4x100 free relay.