{"id":179424,"date":"2018-08-31T03:43:10","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T07:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=179424"},"modified":"2018-08-31T03:43:10","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T07:43:10","slug":"judoka-watanabe-delivers-phs-1st-silver-asian-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/31\/judoka-watanabe-delivers-phs-1st-silver-asian-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Judoka Watanabe delivers PH’s 1st silver in Asian Games"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: SILVER MEDALIST. Filipino-Japanese Kiyomi Watanabe shows the medal she won in the women’s -63kg category of the 18th Asian Games judo competition at the Jakarta Convention Center in Indonesia on Thursday. (Photo by PSC Media Pool via PNA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

JAKARTA<\/strong>\u00a0— Three-time Southeast Asian Games champion Kiyomi Watanabe delivered the country’s first silver medal at the 18th Asian Games here on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Filipino-Japanese marched on to the championship round of the women’s -63kg category after beating Thailand’s Orapin Senatham (by Ippon in 1:17) in the quarterfinals and prevailed over Mongolia’s Gankhaich Bold (by Wza-ari in 4:00) in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

But Watanabe bowed to Japan’s Nami Nabekura, who won by Ippon in 3:21, to claim the gold medal in their final match at the Jakarta Convention Center Plenary Hall.<\/p>\n

“I am happy to win the silver medal,” said Watanabe, who spoke little English. She was seventh in Incheon, South Korea four years ago.<\/p>\n

“She (Watanabe) did her best to win, but her Japanese opponent is very good,” Watanabe’s Japanese coach Yazaki Yuta said after the match.<\/p>\n

Nabekura, who is No. 3 in the International Judo Federation (IJF) world rankings, said she is nervous but optimistic of winning.<\/p>\n

“This is my first Asian Games and I was a little nervous. But I told myself that I have to win,” said the 21-year-old Nabekura, who spoke through a translator.<\/p>\n

“I trained so hard to prepare for this competition,” said the 5-foot-4 Nabekura, who defeated Indonesia’s Ardelia Yuli Fradivtha and China’s Jing Tang to reach the final round.<\/p>\n

Nabekura is a four-time Grand Prix champion and a gold winner in the 2017 Asian Championships in Hong Kong and the 2015 World Junior Championships in United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Filipino-Japanese athletes Mariya Takahashi (women’s -70kg, Megumi Kurayoshi (women’s -57kg) and Keisei Nakano (men’s -73kg) failed to advance to the medal round in their respective categories.<\/p>\n

Takahashi, the 2017 SEA Games champion, downed Thailand’s Surattana Thongsri (by Ippon in 1:21) in the round-of-16 to reach the quarterfinal round but lost to South Korea’s Kim Seong-yeon in the next round.<\/p>\n

Takahashi’s loss sent her to repechage stage where she lost to Mongolia’s Naranjargal Tsend-Ayush.<\/p>\n

Just like Watanabe, Takahashi could not handle Kim, who is the Asian Games defending champion.<\/p>\n

“She (Kim) is very strong. It is hard to beat her,” said the 17-year-old Takahashi, a high school junior at the Shukugawa Gakuin High School in Hyogo Prefecture.<\/p>\n

But against her Thailand foe, Takahashi had expected to win.<\/p>\n

“I beat her two times so I know I can win,” said Takahashi, who beat Thongsri in the 2017 SEA Games final and the Grand Slam in Tokyo in the same year.<\/p>\n

Thongsri, a five-time SEA Games champion, finished ninth in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.<\/p>\n

Kurayoshi was sent packing by Hong Kong’s Leung Po Sum in the round-of-16.<\/p>\n

Keisei, the twin brother Shugen, won over Jordan’s Eyal Salman Younis (by Wza-ari in 4:00) in the round-of-32, but lost to Iran’s Mohammad Mohammadi Barimanlou in the round-of-16.<\/p>\n

Shugen won Malaysia’s Wei Fu Chong in the first round but was eliminated by Kazakhstan’s Yeldos Zhumakanov (by Ippon in 24 seconds) in the round-of-16.<\/p>\n

In kurash, Jason Balabal lost to Turkmenistan’s Guvanch Begaliyev, 0-10, in the first round of the men’s -90kg category.<\/p>\n

In athletics, Ernest John Obiena registered 5.30 meters to finish seventh among 13 entries in the men’s pole vault.<\/p>\n

Japan’s Seito Yamamoto topped the event with a new Games record of 5.70 meters, while China\u2019s Jie Yao and Thailand\u2019s Patsapong Amsam Ang each cleared 5.50 meters.<\/p>\n

Those who cleared 5.40 meters ahead of Obiena were Kazakhstan’s Sergey Grigoryev, Saudi Arabia’s Hussain Asim Al Hizam and South Korea’s Jin Min-sub.<\/p>\n

Filipino-American Kristina Knott placed sixth in a tie with China’s Kong Lingwei with a time of 23.51 seconds in the women’s 200-meter run.<\/p>\n

Bahrain’s Edidiong Odion won the gold in 22.96 seconds, India’s took the silver in and China’s Wei Yongli got the bronze in 23.27 seconds.<\/p>\n

The men’s 4 x 100 meters relay team of Filipino-Americans Eric Shauwn Cray and Trenten Anthony Beram, Clinton Kingley Bautista and Anfernee Lopena failed to qualify in the final after landing fifth with a time of 39.59 seconds in the heats.<\/p>\n

Mark Harry Diones was 12th in a 15-man field in the men\u2019s triple jump with 15.72 meters. He registered 16.46 meters in the 2017 Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s Arpinder Singh bagged the gold medal with a best jump of 16.77 meters on his third attempt. Uzbekistan’s Ruslan Kurbanov pocketed the silver with 16.62 meters while China’s Shuo Cao got the bronze with 16.56 meters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JAKARTA\u00a0— Three-time Southeast Asian Games champion Kiyomi Watanabe delivered the country’s first silver medal at the 18th Asian Games here …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":179425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","mauthors-jean-malanum","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}