Heartbreaks for Philippines Para team

NAGOYA – The Philippines had a slow, gloomy Wednesday, with failed attempts of taekwondo jin Allain Ganapin, thrower Alyana Nuñez and high jumper Wilson Sante, Jr. to snatch a medal in the 5th Asian Para Games here.

Ganapin ran into Paralympics silver medalist Mahdi Pourrahnamaahmad of Iran in the quarterfinals and lost, and then blew an early lead and succumbed to Uzbekistan’s Otabek Amatov in the repechage of the men’s K44 -80-kilogram division at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Stadium.

It was another heartbreaker for the 28-year-old Marikina City native, who qualified to the Tokyo Paralympics five years ago but got hit by COVID-19 just a few days before his scheduled flight to the Japanese capital.

Ganapin’s coach, Gershon Bautista, said it was just a tough field.

“Talagang as mentioned before, it was a good shot but all these athletes all qualified here,” he said.

Nuñez, for her part, wound up fourth in the women’s discus throw F11 with a 28.77-meter heave at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium.

Rosalie Torrefiel also saw action in the same event but finished eighth and last with a 21.58m.

Same with Sante, who ended up tied for fourth with Bangladeshi Md Salem Reza with 1.83m each in the men’s high jump F11 class.

He finished a fraction of a meter behind eventual bronze winner Temurbek Giyazov of Uzbekistan with a 1.86m.