Annie raps tall Indian, assured of AIG silver

HANOI – Bantamweight Annie Albania maintained her fearsome form as she defeated India’s Chhoto Loura, 6-0, in women’s boxing’s semifinal round in the third Asian Indoor Games at the Bah Ninh gymnasium here yesterday.

Albania, who gave up at least two inches in height to Chhoto, proved to be more skillful as she displayed solid counter punching to fashion out the victory and assure Philippines of a silver medal in the meet.

The 27-year-old silver medalist in the last World Women’s Championships will face Thailand’s Sopida Satumrum of Thailand in the finals set tomorrow.

Sopida easily defeated Vietnamese rival Hang Le Thi Ngan, 14-0, in the other semifinals bout.

Albania capitalized on wild punches thrown by her 26-year-old rival and converted these into points using mostly her right jabs.

The win also made up for pinweight Josie Gabuco’s 3-7 defeat at the hands of four-time World champion ML Mary Kom as Philippines has secured two bronze medals.

Earlier, former world champion Engelberto “Biboy” Rivera became the first medalist for Team Philippines as he bagged the bronze in the men’s singles in bowling played at the Saigon Superbowl in Ho Chi Minh City Sunday night.

The 35-year-old Rivera who won the Ramadam Open Masters title last September, made it to the quarterfinals by finishing fourth overall among 73 bowlers from 20 countries with 1386 in the six-game series.

He defeated Japan’s Yoshinao Masatoki, 205-194, to advance into the semifinals where he met defending champion Naif Obaq Al-Abadla of United Arab Emirates (UAE) who took a 219-194 win ending Rivera’s campaign.

Al-Abadla who placed eight overall after the six-game series who defeated top seed Chul Jang Dong of Korea in the quarterfinals, 279-183, topped another Korean in sixth seed Choi Bok Eum in the finals, 222-219, to win a second AIG men’s singles title after dominating the event during the 2007 Macau edition.

“Biboy kept his focus the entire six games. Our target was to make it to the quarterfinals and he did it by taking one frame at a time so as not to waste any frame,” said bowling coach Jojo Canare.

Three more Filipino bowlers saw action with Chester King who bowled with Rivera in the second group, finishing at 30th place with 1235 while Raoul Miranda and Jonas Baltasar settled for 38th (1195) and 42nd (1170) places.

The women’s team, however, failed to duplicate a medal performance from their male counterpart as Liza del Rosario bowed to Tannya Roumimper, 179-195 in the quarterfinals of the women’s singles played yesterday.

Del Rosario, a former Asian Tenpin champion who along with Paeng Nepomuceno will compete in the 45th World Cup slated Nov. 13 to 20 at Melaka International Bowling Center in Melaka, Malaysia, made it to the quarterfinals as she scored 1,219 in the six-game series preliminary round to finished fifth overall in a field of 49 bowlers from 13 countries.

Her teammates Maria Lourdes Arles, Kimberly Lao and Krissiah Lyn Tabora failed to advance with Arles settling at 11th (1186), Lao at 28th (1131) and Tabora at 39th (1064).

Philippines also has three assured bronze medals in women’s boxing courtesy of Josie Gabuco, Annie Albania and Mitchel Martinez.

All three lady boxers climbed the ring in yesterday’s semifinals bout where a victory will advance them into the gold medal bout in pinweight, bantamweight and light welterweight.