No more 50? Sputtering gold machine grinds to a halt for team PH

KUALA LUMPUR—If Team Philippines wants to avert a looming disaster to its Southeast Asian Games campaign here, the time to make a decisive move is on Saturday.

Going into the final weekend of the Games, the country only has 15 gold medals, 21 silvers and 36 bronzes after it failed to win in any competition Friday.

But there will be 52 golds up for grabs on Saturday—the busiest day of this edition of the biennial meet—and the Philippines is in contention in a handful of them.

Men’s basketball, women’s singles tennis, BMX competitions, poomsae in taekwondo, judo, 9-ball pool, athletics 4×100-meter relays and even ice skating are all hoping to deliver golds for the country.

Olympian Daniel Caluag, the 2014 Asian Games gold medalist, is a strong contender in BMX, while another Olympian, Michael Martinez, should figure in the battle for figure skating supremacy.

But the Philippines is faced with a long, hard climb to the 50 golds the sports officials predicted the country to win.

That’s because on Friday, it could not find one.

Francis Casey Alcantara and Ruben Gonzales settled for silver in men’s tennis doubles after bowing to four-time champion and twins Sonchai and Sanchai Ratiwatana, 6-4, 2-6, 10-7, at Jalan Duta Tennis Complex.

Katharina Lehnert and Denise Dy only managed a bronze in tennis women’s doubles.

The women’s lawn bowls team yielded to Malaysia, 19-11, in the Triples final, while Fil-Am swimmer James Deiparine placed second in the men’s 100m breaststroke with a time of one minute and 2.11 seconds behind Indonesia’s Nathaniel Gagarin (1:01.76).