Veteran move helps Indonesia get duathlon gold at expense of Filipino bet

Filipino duathlete Joey De Los Reyes captures 2nd place at the men’s elite duathlon event of the 30th SEA Games in Subic, Zambales on Monday, December 2, 2019. INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — Indonesia’s Johan Jauhari pulled a veteran move on the Philippines’ Joey de los Reyes to win gold medal in the men’s duathlon in the 30th Southeast Asian Games here Monday.

Jauhari sprinted home in the last 500 meters as De los Reyes took a drink on the run. The lapse was enough to send the Indonesian home for the gold. Jauhari clocked a fast one hour, 52 minutes and 51 seconds.

The startled De los Reyes dropped back to third and had to make a desperate sprint in the final 50 meters to overtake Srinate Wattawut of Thailand for the silver. He clocked 1:53:04, just a second ahead of the Thai.

The other Filipino, Jerwyn Banatao, failed to keep pace with the leaders in the 10km initial run of the run-bike-run event. He fell behind and failed to catch up with the leaders of the 10km bike leg. He ended up in fifth place.

The Filipinos’ strategy — to pull each other in the bike leg and hope to drop the rest of the field — failed to Materialize when Banatao failed to keep up with the furious pace in 10-k opening run leg.

With Banatao way behind, De los Reyes was forced to fight it out on his own against Jauhari and Wattawut in the bike leg.

The Filipino was unable to drop his two rivals in the bike leg and was forced to slug it out with them in the fiinal 5-k run. Then Jauhari did the trick on De Los Reyes and even managed to smile all the way to the finish line.