By Reynald Magallon
SANYA, China — The Philippine Athletics team closed out strong on the sands, claiming a silver medal in the women’s 4×60 meters relay in beach athletics at the Phoenix Island just as the two beach volleyball teams remained unscathed at the Tianya Haijiao Venue in the 6th Asian Beach Games at the Phoenix Island on Sunday, April 26.
With the five curved high-rise buildings — which serve as icons to the man-made eco-tourism island — providing an elegant backdrop, the Nationals sprinted like a gazelle on the sand tracks and clocked 29.73 seconds — just 0.3 milliseconds behind gold medal winner Thailand.
Olympian Kristina Knott, running for the first time on the beach, bolted out of the starting line and gave the Filipinas an early advantage against their competitors in the heat 2 final.
Shane Joy Ponce and Lianne Pama sustained the run in their turns before anchor Jessica Laurance came out strong to bag the PH Athletics’ third medal in as many games.
“It’s so different. There’s no baton. The exchange zone is 3 metres versus 30 metres. So I think that our only enemy in the race was the zone.” said Knott.
Laurance, on the other hand, is now the only multi-medalist for Team PH so far after adding the silver to the bronze she won in the women’s 60m race.
“It feels great. Honestly, I came here not knowing what to expect. I really just wanted to have fun and see what I could do on sand. I’ve never run on sand and I really beat my expectations. So I’m really happy,” said Laurance.
Overall, the PH athletics team came away with a gold, a silver and a bronze in this year’s edition of the beach games. Leonard Grospe was the other gold medal winner after ruling the men’s high-jump.
Meanwhile, the two PH beach volleyball teams were through to the quarterfinals with the duo of Sunny Villapando and Grydelle Matibag defeating Sri Lanka, 21-15, 21-13 while the pair of Kylem Progella and Sofia Pagara taking down Kazakhstan, 21-11, 21-14.
“I think everything starts with a pass, right? So, our ball control, our good pass set is really what I was focused on in the front half of that set because when we pass in front and we set in front, we have good vision and we can put the ball wherever we want,” said Villapando.
The two squads both came out of the group stage with perfect 3-0 records.
- Villapando and Matibag defeated Kazakhstan, Macao, China and Mongolia while Progella and Pagara beat Macao, China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
