Suarez settles for silver; Phl 22nd overall

Charly Suarez (right) slugs it out with Mongolia’s Dorjnyambuu Otgondalai during their gold medal bout in the Asian Games. Upper photo shows Suarez celebrating his silver medal feat.       JUN MENDOZA

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.

 

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