Filipino jiu jitsu fighter Marc Alexander Lim finally wins a gold medal in the SEA Games. –JUNE NAVARRO
PHNOM PENH—It took a while before jiu-jitsu fighter Marc Alexander Lim reached the top of his weight class in the Southeast Asian Games.
After trying his luck for the third Games in a row, the 26-year-old from Davao City finally achieved what he had been dreaming all along—a gold medal in the men’s nogi -69kg on Sunday at the 32nd SEA Games here.
“I’ve been through a lot of silvers and bronzes in my career. This was simply the result of my strong determination to win,’’ said Lim, a silver medalist during the 2019 SEA Games in Manila that was downgraded to a bronze last year in the Hanoi edition.
SILVER FOR MEGGIE
WATCH: Meggie Ochoa is carried off the mat after suffering a left knee injury in her gold-medal match against Cambodia's Jessa Khan in the women's 52kg jiujitsu. #SEAGames2023 | @junavINQ pic.twitter.com/9JDa72y1Hz
— INQUIRER Sports (@INQUIRERSports) May 7, 2023
Lim toppled Vietnam’s Dang Dinh Tung in the finals, a win that made up for a sorry loss that Meggie Ochoa absorbed in the gold-medal finale against Cambodian local hero Jessa Khan in the female nogi -52kg.
Khan, who lost to Kaila Napolis in the Gi -52kg class on Thursday, redeemed herself in front of a wildly-cheering home crowd after submitting Ochoa via the knee bar early in the second round.
“It was my left knee, but I can manage,’’ said Ochoa, the women’s 48kg champion last year in Vietnam who was carried off the mat and settled for the silver medal.
Lim’s victory was the third gold medal for the national jiujitsu squad in these Games, including the triumph of Annie Ramirez on Saturday in the women’s nogi -57kg.
“We trained in the United States for six weeks, honed our skills with some of the best fighters there and got rewarded for it,’’ said Lim.