Divine Wally salvaged a bronze in the Wushu’s Women’s -52kg Sanda tournament, late Wednesday night, to prevent what could have been a first medal-less day for the Philippines in the 18th Asian Games.
A day after the entire country celebrated Hidilyn Diaz’s success in weightlifting, no other Filipino athlete from the 272-member delegation came close to winning another gold medal – China bagged its 35th gold medal to widen its gap over second-running Japan to 18 golds, as Japan has 17.
The one-gold and five-bronze haul puts the Philippines at No. 16 on the medal tally board – behind Southeast Asian rivals No. 4 Indonesia (six golds) and No. 8 Thailand (four golds) and ahead of No. 17 Singapore (one gold and two silvers), No. 20 Vietnam (three silvers and six bronzes) and No. 23 Myanmar (two bronzes).
The veteran internationalist Wally lost to a taller and more aggressive Samiroumi Elaheh Mansoryan of Iran, 1-2, in their quarterfinal match to settle for the bronze at the Jakarta International Expo.
The 5-foot Wally – who is a relative of former ONE Lightweight World Champion Eduard Folayang – tried her best to connect with her strikes, but the 5-foot-6 two-time world champion Mansoryan evaded them while connecting on her attacks. Mansoryan advances to the championship round on Thursday and could possibly, finally win the gold that eluded her in Incheon 2014, where she was a silver medalist.
Mansoryan – the world champion in Kuala Lumpur (2013) and Kazan, Russia (2017) – will dispute the gold with China’s Li Yueyao at 10 a.m.
Also the Asian champion in 2016 in the 56kg class, Mansoryan was simply too much for Wally, as she aggressively dominated the Filipina in the final two rounds after trailing the first, 0-1.
The 24-year-old Wally improves on her fifth-place finish in the Asian Games, as she contributed to the Philippines’ medal haul with its fifth bronze and the second from wushu, counting Agatha Wong’s own medal in the women’s taolu.
Wally, the 2016 48 kgs champion of the Asian Championships in Taoyuan, was assured of the bronze after beating Petriwi Selviah of Indonesia, 2-0. She earlier subdued Mimi Yoysaykham of Laos, 2-0.
She took up the sport in 2013 at age 18.
