HANOI—Swimmer Miguel Molina settled for the silver medal in his favorite 200-m individual medley event while sanshou artist Jennifer Lagilag picked up a bronze as the Philippines went on to match its best showing in the 3rd Asian Indoor Games entering its last two days.
The 25-year-old Molina, who was named as the 2007 Thailand SEA Games Best Male Athlete, finished second behind Kazakhstan’s Dimitriy Gordiyenko as he again struggled in the first 50 meters of the race.
Molina fell back to sixth spot in the first 50 meters before making his move the rest of the way in the finals held Wednesday night at the My Dinh National Aquatics Center.
And although he finally caught up with the four swimmers ahead of him in the last 150 meters, he still fell way behind Gordiyenko, who easily swam his way to the gold.
Gordiyenko, who posted the best time in the heats with 2:00.51, bettered his time to 1:57:50 for the gold medal. Molina, who reached the finals with the third-best time of 2:03:26, fell short by 2.39 seconds at 1:59.89. The bronze medal went to Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Chi-chieh, who finished third with 2:00.88.
Lagilag, meanwhile, bowed to a taller and more skillful rival in Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Bich, 0-2, in the semifinal bout of the 48-kilogram division sanshou event of wushu at the Trinh Hoai Duc Gymnasium.
It was the third time that Lagilag faced Thi Bich with the latter winning all their matches. The first two meetings happened in the 2007 World Wushu Championships in Beijing and the Thailand SEA Games.
Thi Bich immediately stamped her class against the 27-year-old Benguet native as she bloodied Lagilag’s nose right in the first round. Lagilag fought back in the second round with a push, but the 2007 world champion Thi tagged her Filipina rival with two roundhouse kicks to the body that sealed the victory.
