Tabal, Tabuena end Rio stint fighting

Philippines’ Miguel Luis Tabuena competes in the men’s individual stroke play at the Olympic Golf course during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 11, 2016. AFP / Emmanuel DUNAND

RIO DE JANEIRO—Miguel Tabuena capped his Olympic experience with a valiant round and Mary Joy Tabal chose the way of the brave rather than surrender to an enemy called exhaustion as they bowed out of the 31st Summer Games here on Sunday.

Tabuena closed out with his only sub-par round in four days–a hard-won 70–and totalled 291 over the windswept 7,128-yard Olimpico de Golfe course.

Her lithe frame pained all over as the scorching heat sapped every ounce of her strength, Tabal lumbered on and finished the women’s marathon in three hours, two minutes and 27 seconds at the Sombodromo carnival stadium.

Both wound up far behind the gold medalists  in their respective competitions but there was never any doubt they fought well for flag and country.

The 21-year-old Tabuena birdied two of the last three holes, the second at the last, as he finally conquered a links course carved out of the city’s Marapendi National Reserve that had yielded him scores of 73, 75 and 73 in the first three rounds.

He settled for 53rd place, 23 shots behind Justin Rose of Great Britain, who pipped British Open champion Henrik Stenson by two in a dramatic final-round shootout for the gold medal.

“The game plan was to attack the pins today, no holding back,” said Tabuena, who played through a shoulder pain in the last 54 holes. “I promised the guys back home that I will not give up. I didn’t and I shot my best round today.”

The reigning Philippine Open winner dropped a shot on No. 10 after mixing three birdies and as many bogeys on the front nine. He finally got back to even par after canning a 35-foot birdie putt on No. 16, which he had bogeyed in the first two rounds.

Tabuena’s 291 aggregate may have consigned him to the bottom fourth of the field but it should give him the satisfaction of outshining several notable names, including current Asian Tour Order of Merit leader Anirban Lahiri of India.

The Filipino ace lay fourth in the OOM.

But it was the courageous run of the 27-year-old Tabal that tugged at the hearts of a handful of worried Filipinos that waited for her at the finish line in the belly of Rio’s iconic carnival venue.

Fagged out and toiling on unsteadily in the final 300-meter straightaway, Tabal crossed the finish line, pressed on her wrist timer and then collapsed in the arms of medics, her face a picture of pain.

She was the 124th of 133 runners to finish the 42.195-kilometer race, 38 minutes and 23 seconds behind Kenya’s gold medalist Jemima Jelagat Sumgong.

Tabal, in tears and still wincing in pain as she obliged reporters, admitted she almost gave up at the halfway mark as the sun bore down fiercely on the scenic seaside course and pain in her legs and upper body began to engulf her.

Still she carried on and thought about the people back home who wanted her to finish the race.

“My body was numbed and couldn’t take it anymore at the 21K mark,” Tabal said in Filipino. “My mind said, ‘Just finish the race whatever happens. You can’t give up now, this is the Olympics.’

“I was imagining hearing people back home cheering me on. I know a lot of people were praying for me to finish the race.”

The 27-year-old Tabal had originally targeted a time faster than her national record of 2:43.47.

But the abrupt change in temperatures between the 9:30 am. (Rio time) start time and the halfway mark took its toll on the highly educated Milo Marathon champion from Guba, Cebu City.

“I have never quit a race in my whole career and I didn’t want to quit in this Olympics,” she said.

Tabal passed the halfway mark just a minute behind her target time of 1:21 but then slowed down as temperatures reached its peak of 31 degrees Celsius. The race was flagged off in the morning with the mercury measuring at 18 degrees.

Sumgong won with a time of 2:24.04 with Bahrain’s Eunice Jepkirui Kirwa bagging silver in 2:24.13. The bronze went to Mare Dibaba of Ethiopia who timed 2:24.30.

The drama for the gold medal in men’s golf swept all the way to the par-5 72nd hole which Rose and Stenson, tied at 15 under, nearly reached with their second shots.

The English Rose sewed up the handsome victory with a brilliant chip to less than two feet as Stenson three-putted from 30 feet for bogey.

Matt Kuchar rallied with a day-best eight-under-par 63 to seize rhe bronze medal for the United States.

In ruling a sport resurrected from its 112-year Olympic hiatus, the 2013 US Open winner Rose also became the first man to make a hole-in-one in Games history. He aced the 191-yard No. 4 in the first round.