Suarez settles for silver; Phl 22nd overall

INCHEON, South Korea – Filipino Charly Suarez gave Mongolian Dorjnyambuu Otgondalai a severe beating in the first round but failed to sustain the momentum well enough in the second and third rounds and lost by split decision, 29-28, 27-30, 27-30 to settle for silver in the men’s lightweight division of the Asian Games boxing competitions yesterday.

Suarez piled the points with his rapid-fire 1-2-3 combinations in the first round, and traded shots with the Mongolian whom he defeated in a tournament in Kazakhstan in July, in a fast-paced exchange of blows in the last two rounds.

Cuban judge Jose Ignacio del Puerto Trueba saw it 29-28 for Suarez but Italian Albino Foti and Hungarian Veronika Szucs gave the Mongolian similar 30-27 scores.

“Hindi para sa atin (It’s not for us),” said Suarez.

The loss was good for a silver on top of bronze medals of lightflyweight Mark Anthony Barriga, bantamweight Mario Fernandez and middleweight Wilfredo Lopez, who all lost in the semifinals a day earlier.

Elsewhere, Mae Soriano defeated Indonesian Snistryarani of Indonesia, 2-1, in the repechage to win the bronze medal in the -55kg class in women’s karate.

Princess Diane Sicangco absorbed a first round loss (3-1) to Malaysian Jeffry Krisnan, who went on to win the gold in the -61 kg class.

Kristie Elaine Alora advanced to the taekwondo -73 kg semifinal where she lost to Sorn Seavemey of Cambodia, 6-5, and took the bronze.

John Paul Lizardo, playing with a knee injury, won over Laotian Kuangmany Thipphakone, 10-3, in the first round, but yielded to Ali Ghazanlar of Pakistan, 14-12, in the -54 kg quarterfinal.

With the silver of Suarez, the three bronze medals from boxing, the fifth bronze from taekwondo and one from karate, the Philippines wound up with a gold-silver-bronze medal tally of 1-3-11 for 22nd place, not counting the only event left today – by Babel Arevalo in the -50 kumite of karate – before Team Pilipinas signs off for the 17th Asian Games.

China emerged as the virtual overall champion with 146-104-81, followed by Korea 75-71-79 and Japan 46-72-75.

Down the middle, Thailand led Southeast Asian nations at sixth with 12-7-28, followed by Malaysia at 14th with 5-14-13, Singapore at 15th with 5-6-11, Indonesia at 17th with 4-5-11, Myanmar at 20th with 2-1-4 and Vietnam at 21st with 1-10-6. Laos was at 32nd with 1-1-2.