KUALA LUMPUR – Filipino recurve specialists will be bidding to finally win archery’s first gold medal in the 29th Southeast Asian Games when they see action Sunday at the National Sports School Synthetic Turf Field here.
After their counterparts in compound events fell short, the Filipino archers aim to do better with Beijing Olympics veteran Mark Javier and Nanjing Olympic Youth Games gold medalist Gabriel Moreno leading the assault in the men’s individual recurve competition.
Also vying in the men’s division are seasoned campaigners Florante Matan and Rogelio Tremedal in the stint supported by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).
Competing in the women’s individual recurve tournament are Kareel Hongitan, Maryqueen Ybanez and Nicole Tagle.
The Filipino marksmen underwent intensive training at the United States national archery training center in Salt Lake, Utah as part of their SEA Games buildup and, together with the compound archers, trained in Dumaguete City, an archery hotbed, for a month before heading to Kuala Lumpur.
“We’re hoping that our intensive training in the US will bear fruit and somehow we hope to recover from our lackluster efforts in the compound competitions,” said head coach Clint Sayo.
Expected to be a focus of attention is Moreno, 19, who skipped three months of school as a La Salle freshman to focus on his preparations for the SEA Games.
“My son Gabby (Moreno’s nickname) really wants to win a medal here so he stopped schooling for a while. And he is anything but relentless,” noted his father Freddie, who accompanied the archer here.
Unlike the compound bets, who came home from the Singapore SEA Games with one silver and three bronze medals, the national recurve archers returned to the country empty-handed.