Figure skaters save day for Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ Isabella Gamez and Aleksandr Korovin qualified to the medal round of figure skating’s mixed pair short program and kept the country’s medal hopes afloat following stinging defeats in other events of the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China yesterday.

Gamez and Korovin, a Russian-born naturalized Filipino, was fourth in the qualifying round with a 55.63 score, enough to book them a ticket to today’s finale where they have a golden chance at delivering the country’s breakthrough medal in the quadrennial meet.

Uzbekistan’s Ekaterina Geynish and Dmitry Chigirev were the round’s best performers with a 64.55 while Japan’s Yuna Nagaoka and Sumitada Moriguchi was No. 2 with a 58.49. North Korea’s Ryom Tae Ok and Han Kum Chol were in third with a 55.68.

Paolo Borromeo was currently fighting for a finals seat in the men’s short program at the HIC Multifunctional Hall.

Also in figure skating, Sofia Frank and Cathryn Limketkai will battle for slots in the women’s single skating short program today.

It did not go well though in the women’s freeski slopestyle event where Laetazs Amihan Rabe ended up sixth with 56.50 points in the first run and a DNI (Did Not Improve) in the second.

Team Philippines absorbed another loss in women’s curling after Kazakhstan escaped with a hard-fought 5-4 victory.