THE PHILIPPINES finally scored a breakthrough victory in 3-on-3 basketball that turned out to be too little too late for the Filipino contingent in the first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore on Thursday.
Filipino-American Bobby Ray Parks, Jr., Jeron Teng, Cris Michael Tolomia and Michael Pate crushed South Africa’s Nkosinathi Festile, Justin Paton, Duke Lazarus and Siyabonga Mahlinza, 26-12, to register their first win after getting booted out with three straight setbacks earlier.
The first YOG victory for the RP contingent came on a day swimmers Jessie Lacuna and Jasmine Alkhaldi failed to create a ripple at the pool again.
The first YOG victory for the RP contingent came on a day swimmers Jessie Lacuna and Jasmine Alkhaldi failed to create a ripple at the pool again.
Both Lacuna and Alkhaldi were simply outclassed in the heats of the 100-meter free and 50m free, respectively.
The Bulacan-born Lacuna wound up 19th overall by clocking 52.1 seconds, while Alkhaldi finished 17th in her event with a time of 27.1 seconds.
Lacuna wraps up the RP campaign in the inaugural games as he competes in the 200m fly today.
The Filipinos hardly treated the match as a no-bearing affair, attacking the South Africans without letup.
Teng fired 10 points, while Michael Pate contributed six for the RP cagers, who grabbed a commanding 18-2 lead at the end of the first half.
The Filipinos bowed to the US Virgin Islands, 28-34, before losing to the Spanish, 25-27, leading to their early elimination. In a match they controlled until the final minutes, the Filipinos bowed to the Croatians, 19-22.
Earlier, taekwondo-jin Kirk Barbosa and tennis bet Jeson Patrombon were shown the door in the first round, while weightlifter Patricia Llena mustered a fifth-place finish in the 63 kg division.
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