Filipino athletes scooped up two golds and a bronze this weekend in the 2023 Taiwan Athletics Open Championships.
Southeast Asian Games veterans Frederick Ramirez and Sonny Wagdos lived up to expectations by topping the men’s 400-meter run and the 10000-meter run, respectively.
And so did Clinton Kingsley Bautista with his bronze medal performance in the men’s 100-meter hurdles.
Ramirez ruled the men’s 400-meter run in 47.02 seconds, a clocking which was slightly behind his 46.63-second bronze medal finish in the recent SEA Games.
He outran Taiwan’s Asian Games candidate Yu Chenyl, who was second in 47.38 seconds.
Wagdos won over Soh Riu Yong of Singapore in the battle of SEA Games silver medallists for first place at 31 minutes, and 18.55 seconds in the men’s 10,000 meters.
For Wagdos, his performance was seen as a personal best time, considering that he ran the 5000 meters in the SEA Games, as Soh settled for second spot in the 10000-meter action of the biennial meet.
Bautista, on the other hand, was third in the men’s 110-meter hurdles with his time of 13.92 seconds.
Meanwhile, the national athletics team will be trimmed down in half as the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association prepares to assemble a lean and mean group that will see action in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
From a 42-man delegation, a 21-member body will be formed to make up a competitive roster for the quadrennial meet.
The Philippines took home 4 golds, 10 silvers and eight bronze medals in the recent 32nd Southeast Asian Games.
Long jumper Janry Ubas, who won one of the four gold medals bagged by the athletics’ team in the recent 32nd Southeast Asian Games, is part of a 16-man delegation participating in the Taiwan Open over the weekend.
Ubas, who is competing in the men’s long jump and pole vault, is one of the top candidates for the national team to the Asian championships this July in Pattaya, Thailand.
