Saludar, Albania advance to finals: 2 pugs raise golden hopes

GUANGZHOU – The long, powerful arms of Rey Saludar and Annie Albania overwhelmed and bludgeoned opponents in a pair of one-sided fights, giving the Philippines moments of glory yesterday in the fading hours of the XVI Asian Games.

Saludar delivered 13 crushing blows in a 13-4 conquest of Katsuaki Susa of Japan in the 52 kg semifinal bout of the boxing competitions at the Foshan Lingnan Mingzhu Gymnasium.

The cocky Albania, the greatest fighter to come out of the stable of the amateur boxing association, was even more devastating in a 16-1 demolition of Aya Shimmoto of Japan 45 minutes later in the 48-51 kg class in the women’s section.

The Philippines had one more bronze overall with the semifinal loss of Victorio Saludar to Kazakhstan’s Birzhan Zhakypov, 12-1, in the 46-49 kg division.

After the ouster of the national basketball team in a 66-74 loss to Korea in the quarterfinals and bowling singles gold medalist Biboy Rivera and Marian Posadas and Liza del Rosario in the Masters, the Philippines is holding on to Saludar and Albania in its search of the golds that will match the 2006 effort in Doha, or even more with the prospect of the chess team to vie for the gold.

Wesley So, John Paul Gomez, Darwin Laylo and Eugene Torre edged Kyrgystan, 2.5-1.5, and finished the seven-round Swiss system tournament at second behind China.

The Filipinos battle India, which they beat in the eliminations, in today’s semifinal round for a place in the final possibly against China tomorrow.

 Rey Saludar and Albania go for the golds today.

Rivera fumbled in Block 2 and pooled a 3546 that placed him seventh overall and did not make the stepladder finals while Posadas (3390) was in exactly the same position in the distaff side and del Rosario (3267) was 14th.

The entries from Korea, China, IOC and Thailand advanced to the stepladder finals for the gold-silver-bronze medals.

Olympian Mark Javier lost anew to long-time rival Sung Chia Chun of Chinese Taipei, 51-54, 51-54, while Delfin Adriano pushed Takaharu Furukawa of Japan to the limits before bowing out, 51-56, 53-52, 54-56 in a close encounter in the Round of 64 in individual archery competition at the Aoti Archery Range.

Jimmy Angana joined his brother Jerry in the sidelines with a first round loss to Seyithur Sung of Chinese Taipei, 0-6, 1-4, in the men’s freestyle in wrestling.

Noel Espinosa yielded to Japanese strongman Oki Itaru, 0-5, in the Round of 16 of the individual kata in karatedo, and moved down to the repechage with a chance to win the bronze.

He pinned down Wong Hong Neng of Macau for a 4-1 triumph but lost to Yousef Alharbi of Kuwait, 0-5.

In the distaff side, Mae Soriano unleashed a jaw-shattering kick and a punch to sweep past Man Kou of Macau, 3-2, in the round of 16 but failed to advance against the charging Jang Sy of Korea, 2-4, in the quarterfinal.

Chinese divers continued to run the show and Filipino divers stayed outside the limelight in the one-meter men’s and women’s springboard final.

Defending champion Wu Minxia of China led from start to finish to clinch the gold in the women’s 1m springboard at the Aoti Aquatics Center.

Wu took the lead with her opening dive, an inward one-and-a-half somersault in pike position (2.4 degree of difficulty) for 61.20 points. She then pulled off a difficult dive, a forward two-and-a-half somersault in pike position (DD 2.6) in her next round and received a massive 6.70 points.

The Chinese ace never dipped below 60.00 throughout the session and wrapped it up with her best performance of the day, a reverse one-and-a-half somersault with one-and-a-half twist in free position (DD 2.6) in which she marked the highest score of 72.8.

Her gold winning tally was 326.15 points.

Second was another Chinese, Zheng Shuangxue (303.90) while the bronze medalist was Malaysian Cheong Jun Hoong (271.60).

Sheila Mae Perez was eighth with 232.50 points.China’s domination boiled over to the men’s side where Qin Kai scored a runaway 451.20 for the gold medal, outclassing compatriot He Min (394.20) and routing bronze medalist Song Seongchei of Korea (318.20).

Niño Carog was 10th among 55 participants with 264. He did not complete the sixth routine, while fellow countryman Zardo Domenios did not compete.

In the men’s synchronized 3m springboard diving late Tuesday, Carog and Domenios scored a decent 341 points, 118.26 behind the winning 459.60 of the Chinese pair of Liuo Yutong and Qin.

Henry Dagmil did his best jump on the fourth attempt for a final score of 7.52 meters, placing sixth and losing to SEA Games rival Sukhasvasti Na, who was fifth with 7.54.

The gold-silver-bronze medal winners were Kim Deokhyeon of Korea (8.11), Su Xiongfeng of China (8.05) and sHussain Alsaba of Saudi Arabia (7.96).

At the track Rene Herrera ran his season best of 9:02.93 but that put him only at 13th in the 3,0000m steeplechase won by Taher Tareq of Bahrain (8:25.89), Ali Thamer Kamai of Qatar (8:26.27) and Alamari Ali Ahmad of Saudi Arabia (8;30.96).

The chess team was playing its seventh round game against Kyrgystan last night.