PH shooting team hopes to sustain strong showing in SEA Games

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine shooting team hopes to ride the momentum of its strong showing in the recently-concluded Asian Shooting Championships into the coming Southeast Asian Games, which will be held in the country beginning Nov. 30.

The Philippines emerged as the best Southeast Asian country in the Doha meet after shotgun shooter Carlos Carag tallied a score of 114 while Hagen Topacio and Eric Ang registered 113 and 110, respectively.

The Filipinos garnered a total score of 337 to finish seventh out of 14 Asian teams overall to the delight of Philippine National Shooting Association (PNSA) officials, who are upbeat about the squad’s gold medal chances in the coming SEA Games.

Carag and Topacio met the minimum qualifying standard and became one of the candidates for universality place in next year’s Tokyo Olympics.

Jethro Dionisio, who was also seeking to meet the minimum quota score came one shot short as he fired only 111.

Ang and Topacio, however, had already met the MQS in the Southeast Asian shooting or SEASA championships early this year in Jakarta Indonesia.

Trap coach Fernando Mercado said the Philippine men’s trap team’s score is already equivalent to the gold medals in both the individual and team competition in the SEA Games.

The eight other Filipino shooters who competed in the Asian Championships were the rifle team, led by Olympic solidarity scholars Jayson Valdez and Amparo Acuña, along with Denise Basila and Sean Jayfred Ocampo; and the pistol team of Shanin Lyn Gonzales, Juliette Rose Arellano, Marcelo Gonzales and Angelo Michael Fernandez.

The team was headed by PNSA VP Irene Garcia along with rifle coach Julius Valdez, shotgun coach Fernando Mercado, pistol coach Susan Aguado and armorer Mario Dasalla.