Multi-awarded Nathaniel “Tac” Padilla and rising shooting star 15-year-old Jayson Valdez are the best representatives of a long and strong Philippine tradition in marksmanship.
Their recent records will speak for themselves.
Over the weekend, the 47-year-old Padilla captured the silver medal in rapid fire pistol title in the Southeast Asian Shooting Association (Seasa) held in Vientiane, Laos. Valdez, on the other hand, had earlier bagged the silver in men’s air rifle, with teammate Inna Therese Gutierrez taking the bronze in ladies’ prone rifle event.
Tac is now on track of retaining his rapid fire crown in the SEA Games which gets going in Indonesia this November.
Padilla lost in the Seasa showdown to Vietnan’s Ha Minh Thanh, a silver medal winner in the last Asia Games held in Guangzhou, China.
“I missed winning the gold by two points after leading by one going into the last shot of the final round,” Padilla later said in an interview.
A five-time SEA Games winner in rapid fire, including the last one held in Laos two years ago, Tac is making his 17th SEA Games appearance, the longest—without question—by a Filipino athlete in the SEAG.
Tall, approachable and good-looking, Padilla is a perennial national rapid fire and pistol champion. Tac was only 11 when broke into the national sporting scene by becoming world junior shooting champion in Mexico City. Tac’s father is two-time Olympic shooter (1972 Munich and 1976 Montreal) Mariano “Tom” Ong.
On the other hand, Jayson, a protégé of Tac in the Philippine National Shooting Association’s National Youth Development Program, looms as the sport’s latest phenom.
“Jayson and the other kids are the future of shooting,” said Padilla, who gifted Jayson with a new gun to replace his old rifle. “We have to take advantage of these talented products. They need exposure and they must get it.”
A virtual neophyte in shooting, Jayson got his baptism of fire only two years ago. His first love was taekwondo, but his father, Julius Valdez, a three-time gold medalist in the 1987 SEA Games in Jakarta, encouraged him to try shooting for a change.
The PNSA is now headed by well-known sports and arts patron Mike Romero.
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Performing like a well-oiled machine, the German tandem of Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann methodically overwhelmed surprised finalists Nitiwat Kanjanasri and Kobkit Palajin of Thailand, 10-4, to win the 32-nation 2011 PartyPoker World Cup of Pool championship at the SM City North Edsa Sunday night.
Their victory, worth $60,000 in first prize money, also strengthened the fact that Germany is the rising power in world pool. Just a few days earlier, the bald-headed Souquet captured the World Masters crown while Hohmann ruled this year’s all-star Philippine Open early this year.
Even though I wasn’t invited by organizers to attend their activities, I don’t care. I just followed the matches live on TV where, as a longtime sports journalist and many-time president of the Philippine Sportswriters Association, I was impressed by the performance of the two German aces, especially during the finals of the World Cup of Pool, where Souquet played as efficiently as a BMW car and Hohmann as smoothly as a Mercedes Benz.