By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
John Cabang Tolentino failed to advance to the men’s 110-meter hurdles finals even as other Filipino bets also stumbled in the 2025 Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea.
The 2024 Paris Olympian clocked 14.14 seconds to finish fifth in his heat on Wednesday, May 28. His effort was a far cry from his own national record of 13.37sec he set at the Philippine Open in Pasig last year.
Overall, he ended up 18th among 21 finishers.
Japan’s Rachid Muratake led the qualifiers after timing 13.33sec, followed by Qatar’s Oumar Doudai O Abakar (13.39sec) and China’s Liu Junxi (13.45sec). Other qualifiers were China’s Qin Weibo (13.48sec), Iran’s Masoud Kamran (13.62sec), Chinese Taipei’s Yi Kai Lin (13.62sec), South Korea’s Lim Juno (13.71sec), and Kuwait’s Yaqoub Alyouha (13.89sec).
On Tuesday, May 27, Carlos De Imus wound up at 14th place in the men’s 20km race walk after registering 1 hour, 35 minutes and 28 seconds.
De Imus’ performance was five minutes slower than his recent national record of 1:30:03 he posted at the Asian Race Walking Championships in Nomi, Japan just last March.
China’s Wang Zhangzhao claimed the gold with 1:20:37, while Japan’s Kento Yoshikawa (1:20:46) and India’s Servin Sebasthiyan (1:21:14) bagged silver and bronze, respectively.
Kharis Pantonial, the youngest male member of the PH team at 18 years old, also failed to advance to the men’s 400m semifinals after clocking 48.93sec to finish sixth in his heat event.
Olympian Kristina Knott, meanwhile, was disqualified in the women’s 100m heat event due a false start.
The PH record holder, however, will still see action in the women’s 200m set on Friday, May 30.
