Golf whiz kid, pool bets spark golden hopes

GUANGZHOU – A 16-year-old junior golfer and a boxer, both new on the Asian Games stage, stepped into the limelight with a shining performance that revived golden hopes for the Philippines even as China continued to conquer, amaze and dominate on Day 6 of the Games yesterday.

Miguel Tabuena leaned on his exploits in international competitions in Asia and the United States and on a brave heart to snatch a one-stroke lead over the veterans on the par-72 Dragon Boat Lake near the outskirts of Guangzhou.

His four-under-par 68 put him in the forefront of the gold medal hunt in individual competition and gave the Philippine team, supported here by the International Container Services Inc., a second-running aggregate of 218, way behind Korea (210) but good enough to ward off the surge of third-ranked Sri Lanka (223) and Japan (224).

The women’s team groped for form and finished day 15 shots off the pace at 157 for sixth place, but the outcome is far from resolved with still three rounds left.

Wilfredo Lopez, the latest discovery from a countrywide talent identification program of the boxing association, used a jab and lightning fast combination to score clear points for a 5-1 win over Bangali Suruz off Bangladesh.

Dennis Orcollo and Warren Kiamco also seized the moment as they toppled their respective rivals to advance to the semifinal round of 9-ball billiards.

Plunging into action after waiting five days for their event, Orcollo edged Chen Man Lee of Hong Kong, 9-8, while Kiamco also pulled off a 9-8 thriller over China’s Jinhu Dang to move into the medal round and make up for the ouster of Rubilen Amit and Iris Ranola in the 8-ball round of 16.

Amit and Ranola, meanwhile, see action in the 9-ball round of 16 at presstime against professional women’s tour veteran Xiaoting Pan of China and Thai girl Chonticha Chitchomnart of Thailand.

And pretty Pauline Lopez, a 14-year-old ninth grader from California made a grand debut for the native land of her dad, a US-based former national jin, by kicking out Laila Hussain of Afghanistan in the under 46 kg class in taekwondo.

That moment of triumph, however, was short-lived when she came back in the afternoon’s quarterfinal round to fight 17-year-old Asian bronze medalist Dana Touran of Jordan.

The Jordanian amazon, who crushed a Bahrain lady, 18-0, in the first round, saw off Lopez with a 10-6 victory.

Touran advanced to the finals where she bowed to Chinese Taipei’s Huang Hsien Yung in the gold medal bout.

Samuel Morrison, also one of the new faces on the young taekwondo team, also advanced to the quarterfinal when his first round opponent was disqualified.

However, he found the going tough against Thai Thongsalup Patiwat, who gave him an 8-3 beating.

United States-trained Miguel Molina, 26, still showed awesome power despite his age as he swam his way to the finals of his favorite event, the 200m individual medley.

He finished a very good fifth with a time of 2:04.94, the best for the Filipino tankers who gasped at the sheer power of world-class rivals from China, Korea and Japan.

Japanese Takakuwa Ken, the Asian record holder, topped the event in 1:58.32, edging China’s Wang Shun by 1.41 seconds.

Charles Walker clocked 52.40 seconds while Daniel Coakley posted 52.71 and were out of the finals of the 100m freestyle but Philippine swimming is not entirely ruling them out for a medal in future Asian Games.

Jasmine Alkhaldi also missed the 100m freestyle finals with a 12th best time of 58.01.

In bowling, singles gold medalist Biboy Rivera scored 1277 pinfalls but drew only 1178 from partner Fredirick Ong and finished with 2455, way below the 2711 of gold medal winners HsienLoong Adrian and Liew Kien Liang of Malaysia.

The doubles pair of Chester King and Raoul Miranda scored 2431.

In billiards, Ranola and Amit kissed their medal hopes goodbye in the 8-ball competitions. They left the billiards hall after the round of 16, losing to top seed Chang Shi of Chinese Taipei (5-2) andKim Gy of Korea (5-2).