INQUIRER Sports

SINGAPORE— Just when everybody thought the Philippines would go home sulking in defeat, a 17-year-old bowler delivered a bronze medal at the close of competitions at the first Asian Youth Games here.

Jose Collins rolled a total of 3,507 pinfalls at the Orchid Country Club to settle for third place in the boys’ Masters and secure just the second medal for the Filipinos after a girls’ javelin silver by Stephanie Cimatu last Friday.

Collins worked his way up from fourth place after the first day and came close to taking a crack at the gold medal until he lost his touch in the last two frames in his stepladder duel with Choi Kyung-hwan of South Korea.

A student of San Beda College who hails from Imus, Cavite, Collins failed to come up with the pair of strikes he needed to overtake Choi, who later lost to eventual champion Basil Low of Singapore.

“I could have made it but I lacked the follow through needed in the second to the last frame,” said Collins, a silver medalist in the 2007 Asian Schools team championship.

Low topped the qualifying with a 16-game output of 3,576. Choi was second with 3,558.

Dyan Coronacion landed sixth after compiling 3,338 pinfalls in the girls’ Masters won by Hui Fen New of Singapore with 3,524.

In swimming, Jasmine Alkhaldi, Jessie Khing Lacuna and Dorothy Hong failed to seize a medal in their final events, leaving the national tankers without a medal after the 10-day meet for athletes 14 to 17 years old.

Alkhaldi was last in the girls’ 100m freestyle finals in 59.04 seconds, way off the 55.57 of gold medalist Ting Wen Quah of Singapore.

Lacuna settled for seventh in the boys’ 100 free, timing 53.07. Hong Kong’s Lum Ching Tat won in 50.48.

Hong finished fifth in 31.27 seconds in the girls’ 50m backstroke ruled by Kazakhstan’s Yekaterina Rudenko in 28.69.

Cimatu clinched her silver as the only other entry in the event won by South Korean Lee Seon-hye.

As expected, China emerged the top nation with a tournament-best 24 golds, 14 silvers and eight bronzes followed by Korea with a gold-silver-bronze harvest of 18-14-14.

Thailand was third with a 7-5-2 medal haul. Japan (5-6-1) and host Singapore (5-3-12) finished fourth and fifth, respectively.