A number of the names anticipated to ship for the Philippines within the Asian Video games 2022 in Hangzhou.
The Asian Video games Hangzhou 2022 in 2023 is the subsequent massive discipline of play for Filipino athletes after the Olympics and out of doors of their respective world championships.
From among the many 396 athletes from 40 sports activities who will carry their act to the nineteenth Asian Video games in China on Sept. 23-Oct. 8, just a few shiny spots may emerge atop the medal platform.
JUNNA TSUKII (Karate)
Junna Tsukii. –Picture from Junna Tsukii’s Fb
Junna Tsukii reached the head of success when the Filipino-Japanese karateka plucked a gold medal within the 2022 World Video games.
Since that blockbuster win in Birmingham, Alabama, all of the disappointments that Tsukii endured in earlier tournaments received worn out, together with her non-qualification within the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Now on high of her sport, the 31-year-old is out to higher her bronze medal within the girls’s 50kg kumite through the 2018 Asian Video games in Indonesia with an eye fixed on the last word prize.
She has the credentials to again it up. Tsukii dominated her weight class on the Karate 1-Premier League in Lisbon, Portugal in 2021 and was a silver performer within the Asian Karate Championships held in Almaty, Kazakhstan in the identical 12 months.
She’s a a number of medal grabber within the Southeast Asian Video games with six podium finishes, together with snaring the gold within the 2019 Philippine version.
MEGGIE OCHOA (Jiu-jitsu)
Meggie Ochoa. INQUIRER PHOTO / LEO M. SABANGAN II.
One of the crucial adorned fighters in her sport, jiu-jitsu satisfaction Meggie Ochoa elevated her medal assortment by nailing a gold medal within the 2023 Asian Jiu-Jitsu Championships.
That triumph in Bangkok, Thailand early this 12 months was an excellent begin for Ochoa that set the tone in her bid to recover from the hump of a bronze output through the 2018 Asian Video games in Indonesia.
Ochoa made the mat her personal playground the place she received 4 world titles, two Asian championships gold medals, a pair of Southeast Asian Video games victories and an Asian Indoor Martial Arts Video games diadem in 2017.
There’s no hint of slowing down for Ochoa, who received lined up within the girls’s -48kg. She’s much more decided within the Hangzhou Video games the place her chief nemesis, Cambodian star Jessa Khan, is the defending champion.
KIYOMI WATANABE (Judo)
Kiyomi Watanabe. INQUIRER PHOTO/ Sherwin Vardeleon
After an abbreviated stint within the Tokyo Olympics, Kiyomi Watanabe received shunned from the limelight following an anterior cruciate ligament harm within the runup to the 2021 Hanoi Southeast Asian Video games and the scrapping of her weight class on the 2023 Cambodia version.
Again to her outdated brisk kind, the 27-year-old Filipino-Japanese should like her probabilities within the Asian Video games, having almost clinched the gold medal in 2018 Indonesia.
The four-time SEA Video games champion within the girls’s -63kg misplaced to Japan’s Nami Nabekura within the remaining 5 years in the past and can enter the Hangzhou mat a extra tenacious grappler.
Making her extra anticipating a comeback was the spherical of 32 elimination through an ippon by Cristina Cabana of Spain within the Olympics.
KIRSTIE ELAINE ALORA (Taekwondo)
Kirstie Elaine Alora —INQUIRER PHOTO
Kirstie Elaine Alora’s consecutive victories in a pair of excessive profile worldwide meets appeared to augur properly for the Philippine taekwondo group.
Whereas jins her age are already within the twilight of their careers, the 33-year-old Rio De Janeiro Olympian maintains a well-conditioned physique aggressive sufficient for a medal end result.
Alora lately topped the ladies’s +73kg kyurogi occasion of the 2023 Chuncheon Korea Open Worldwide that paraded a few of her fiercest rivals within the Asian Video games.
Alora’s stunt in Korea was simply three months faraway from the Southeast Asian Video games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia the place she bagged a gold medal in the identical weight class.
It was her fourth gold within the SEA Video games since 2005 with 5 silver medals as well as.
Although retirement beckons, Alora has hyperfocused on a mission to lastly get away of a bronze-medal rut that she ended up claiming within the 2010 Guangzhou and 2014 Incheon Asian Video games.
ANNIE RAMIREZ (Jiu-jitsu)
Annie Ramirez. –PHOTO FROM ANNIE RAMIREZ
Annie Ramirez gained immediate fame for seizing one of many two gold medals of Staff Philippines with Meggie Ochoa through the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Video games in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
Six years later, the 32-year-old jiu-jitsu stalwart nonetheless craves for a repeat act of that triumphant exploit that places her in the course of the dialog each time her sport turns into a sizzling matter.
Properly, the Asian Video games in Hangzhou won’t solely replicate the expertise for the three-time Southeast Asian Video games champion, it additionally guarantees to grow to be the crowning glory of her lengthy and regular profession.
Ramirez, a former nationwide judoka earlier than shifting to jiu-jitsu, can be motivated to face atop the Asian Video games podium following a irritating early exit within the Newaza girls’s -62kg class through the 2018 Jakarta Asiad.
ROBYN BROWN (Athletics)
Robyn Brown. (Picture by Ye Aung Thu / AFP)
Robyn Lauren Brown shocked all people, even herself after profitable the ladies’s 400m hurdles on the 2023 Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.
The Filipino heritage hurdler was neither a favourite nor a projected medal finisher when she catapulted to victory within the greatest monitor and discipline showcase within the continent.
After beating two high-profile Japanese hurdlers on the Asian scene, Brown ultimately punched a ticket to the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary with pole vaulter EJ Obiena and fellow hurdler Eric Cray, however didn’t get previous the qualifying heats.
The 29-year-old from Los Angeles, California is a proud proprietor of the nation’s nationwide report in her occasion (56.44 seconds) and had two silver medals within the Southeast Asian Video games aside from six bronzes that included 4 relays.
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Who is aware of, Brown may shock herself once more and the complete nation within the Asian Video games.