Members of Philippines’ delegation participate within the athletes parade in the course of the opening ceremony of the 2022 Asian Video games on the Hangzhou Olympic Sports activities Centre Stadium in Hangzhou in China’s jap Zhejiang province on September 23, 2023. (Picture by Ishara S.KODIKARA / AFP)
Over the previous a number of months, Filipino athletes ramped up their coaching, repeating each skill-sharpening job to the purpose of monotony.
They may must be supercharged over the following few weeks as full-scale competitions get happening Sunday within the nineteenth Asian Video games right here in Hangzhou, China.
There can be a number of questions answered: How will Kayla Noelle Sanchez, an Olympic medalist who was once a part of a vaunted Crew Canada, fare as a spearhead of a program craving to finish practically 4 gold-deprived a long time?
“My preparation I’d say is nice. I’m clearly making an attempt my greatest to position the very best for Crew Philippines,’’ stated Sanchez, who helped Canada pocket a silver within the 4×100 meter (m) free and a bronze within the 4x100m medley in the course of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics earlier than deciding to swim for the Philippines.
She’s going to lead a 4×100-meter squad on Sunday at Hangzhou Olympic Sports activities Centre Aquatics Area.
Olympic silver medalists Nesthy Petecio and Carlo Paalam start their respective spherical of 32 bids within the 57 kilogram (kg) weight class in boxing, which serves because the continental qualifier to subsequent yr’s Paris Olympics.
“The problem right here can be a lot better since I used to be pressured to go as much as a heavier weight class,’’ stated Paalam in Filipino after the flyweight division the place the 25-year-old bought a silver in Tokyo was scratched from the Paris program.
“I haven’t confronted my doable opponents on this weight class, however I’ll be prepared,’’ added Paalam.
Tokyo Olympian Irish Magno (54kg), Aira Villegas (50kg) and Mark Ashley Fajardo (63.5kg) will even try and ebook tickets to Paris.
Male boxers who advance to the finals will get free Olympic berths whereas girls boxers who advance to the semifinals will even be awarded spots within the Summer time Video games.
Medal bids get going
Agatha Wong will likewise take centerstage within the girls’s taijiquan and taijijian all-around in wushu whereas taekwondo poomsae performers Jocel Lyn Ninobla (girls’s particular person) and Patrick King Perez (males’s particular person), additionally get their medal bids going.
Judoka Shugen Nakano (males’s -66kg), fencers Sammuel Tranquilan (males’s particular person foil) and Ivy Claire Dinoy (girls’s particular person épée) will cross swords with their respective foes in a bid to advance deep into the competitors whilst capturing’s Amparo Acuna tries her luck within the girls’s 10m air rifle.
Becoming a member of forces
Sanchez earned her Tokyo medals by swimming for Canada within the heats and getting her former crew into the finals. She reprised her function for the North American powerhouse on this planet championships earlier than swapping her Canadian passport for a Philippine one to characterize her mother and father’ residence nation.
The 22-year-old Sanchez is about to affix arms with two-time Olympian Jasmine Alkhaldi, Southeast Asian Video games gold medalist Tiea Isabella Salvino and Miranda Renner, who lately injured her shoulder, within the relay.
Minus two-time world champion Carlos Edriel Yulo, the boys’s gymnastics squad will depend on Juancho Miguel Besana, Justine Ace De Leon, Jhon Romeo Santillan and Jan Gwynn Timbang within the males’s crew qualification.
Yulo, a powerful contender within the vault, parallel bars, ground train and all-around, has opted to journey to Antwerp, Belgium, as an alternative for the World Creative Gymnastics Championships beginning Sept. 30, on the lookout for an outright qualification to the Olympics.
Skateboarder Jericho Francisco will jumpstart his bid within the males’s park whereas Jorrel Aristorenas faces Rashed Khaled Alrowaihi of Bahrain within the opening spherical of EA Sports activities FC On-line occasion.
Chessers Mark Paragua, Paulo Bersamina, Janelle Mae Frayna and Marie Antoinette San Diego are scheduled to start their marketing campaign in particular person play, too.
World No. 2 and Asian champion EJ Obiena seems to be one other high gold-medal hope after a silver efficiency on the latest World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary whereas skateboarder Margielyn Didal is searching for to retain the ladies’s road title she received again in 2018 in Indonesia.
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The 2 athletes served as flag-bearers in the course of the glamorous opening ceremony on Saturday at Hangzhou Olympic Stadium, which featured a lavish and high-tech present.