Filipino surfing sensations John Mark Tokong and Roger Casugay earned gold- and bronze-medal finishes, respectively, in the recent Phuket Beach Festival 2022 surfing meet in Thailand last week.
The 26-year-old Tokong reigned supreme after taking on the challenges offered by the waves of Kata Beach, beating Indonesian bet Nyoman Satria Mukti with a score of 15.30 points to claim the men’s short board title.
Mukti tallied 13.4 points to settle for the silver medal.
Casugay, a 2019 Southeast Asian Games standout, claimed the bronze medal in the men’s longboard event.
Dewi Pirdaus of Indonesia collected 17.9 points in his semis clash with Casugay, who had 17.3.
Dean Permana eventually outpaced Pirdaus in the finals with 17.5 points. Pirdaus had 15.3.
“This win is another reason to celebrate for the Philippines which proved once again that Filipino talents can keep up and be at par with the best of the best surfers in the world,” said officials of the United Philippines Surfing Association in a statement.
The Phuket Beach Festival 2022 is sanctioned by the Asian Surf Cooperative, and had surfers from 12 countries in the Asia Pacific region joining, including host Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. Peter Atencio