Asean Games: UAAP’s finest athletes end up seventh

La Salle swimmer Johansen Aguilar settled for a silver medal in his favorite event as Team UAAP-Philippines wound up seventh overall in the 16th Asean University Games that ended Wednesday in Vientiane, Laos.

Aguilar, the UAAP Athlete of the Year last season, came in second in the men’s 200-meter backstroke behind Indonesia’s Glenn Victor Sutanto, who captured the gold with a time of 2:08.36 minutes.

Bucking a bum stomach on the eve of the competition, Aguilar settled for the silver in 2:09.09, two years after ruling the event in Chang Mai, Thailand.

University of the Philippines’ Claire Adorna (women’s 200m back) and Ateneo’s Angelo Gabriel Gumila (over 81 kg, judo) also settled for silvers on the final day of the competition.

Picking up bronze medals were Ateneo’s Celina Gonzalez (women’s 100m butterfly), Matthew Simon Jao (over 90kg, judo) and Toby Gadi and Patrick Natividad (badminton).

The Filipinos finished with just two golds on top of 12 silvers and 16 bronzes.

University of Santo Tomas taekwondo jins Christian Al dela Cruz and Ernest John Mendoza delivered the two victories for the lean Team UAAP-Philippine contingent that dropped from fifth place in the 2011 edition where they finished with a 5-4-24 medal tally.

Malaysia bagged the overall title with a 60-45-70 haul, followed by Vietnam (56-35-28), 2010 champion Thailand (42-51-55), Indonesia (41-52-57), host Laos (30-34-44) and Singapore (3-6-23).  Jasmine W. Payo