FEARED and revered on local soil, Thomasian athletes will now bring their act on the international stage as they don the national colors in the upcoming 15th Asian Games on Dec. 1-15 at Doha, Qatar .
A total of 12 UST stalwarts, led by world champions Biboy Rivera and Jethro Dionisio and Olympians Tshomlee Go and Donald David Geisler II, will try to clinch medals in nine out of 17 sporting events to give the country a lofty finish in the 45-nation quadrennial meet.
Fresh from making waves in the recent 23rd Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) where the country bagged the overall title, Thomasian athletes will stamp their class against the finest athletes of the region in baseball, bowling, billiards, chess, fencing, karate, taekwondo, shooting, and wushu.
Second chance
The 32-year-old Rivera, the current World Bowling Championship Masters’ titlist, will plunge into action alongside bowling greats Paeng Nepomuceno, Liza del Rosario, and Cecilia Yap when competitions unfurl on Dec. 3 at the Qatar Bowling Center Shunning the pain of a left-patella knee injury during the World Championships, Rivera, a UST Tourism graduate in 1991, scored an impressive 300-212 victory over German Alchim Gabrowski to bolster his chances of earning another shot at an Asian Games gold.
A day after Rivera steps on the lanes, three-time World Speed Shooting champion Dionisio will be gunning for the gold in the men’s trap event on Dec. 2 at the Lusail Shooting Range.
On the other hand, 23rd SEA Games silver medalist Hung will be the lone female entry in wushu’s taijiquan (form) event. A Commerce alumna in 2002, Hung also played for the UST Track and Field team.
Coming out of semi-retirement, Geisler seeks to improve his silver-medal finish in the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games when taekwondo hostilities open on Dec. 7. A three-time SEA Games gold medalist, Geisler was one of the three Filipino jins who qualified in the 2004 Athens Olympics where he fought as a lightweight. He also bannered the country in the 2002 Sydney Olympics.
Go, who also suited up in the 2004 Athens Olympics, hopes to repeat his gold-medal finish in the 23rd SEA Games. He won a bronze in the flyweight division of the 2002 Asian Games.
Also trading kicks for the RP squad’s cause are UAAP Season 68 gold medalist Juan Mendoza and Season 67 MVP Alex Briones, who also figured in the 2002 Asiad.
In karate, Gretchen Malalad will try to relive her winning moment in the 23rd SEA Games when she does battle on Dec. 12. The 26-year-old Malalad, a Communication Arts alumna, snared the bronze medal in the 2002 Asiad. She recently copped the gold in the 2nd Korean Open karate championship in Busan, South Korea.
Former Golden Sox ace Wilfredo Hidalgo, Jr. will be manning one of the bases for the veteran-powered RP squad when baseball tiffs off at the Al-Rayyan diamond on Nov. 29.
Asiad greenhorns
Rounding off the Thomasian contingent are Asian Games newcomers Rubilen Amit, Gian Carlo Nocum and Henberd Ortalla, and International Master Ronald Dableo.
Dableo, a former Asian Zonals 3.2 champion, hopes to arrest the gold-medal shutout of the Philippine team in the 23rd SEA Games when he receives his baptism of fire in the chess classic event on Dec. 6.
Amit, an Accounting graduate in 2001, made history by becoming the first woman double-gold medalist in the 23rd SEA Games billiards competition. She reaped the top honors in the 9-ball and 8-ball events.
Thrusting his sword on the Asiad arena for the first time, 2005 SEA Games silver medalist Nocum will meet the fastest blades in the region on Dec. 9.
Meanwhile, UST Table Tennis coach Henberd Ortalla had been tasked to call the shots for the RP Table Tennis composed of Ernesto Ebuen and Richard Gonzales on Nov. 30.
A two-time UAAP MVP, Ortalla steered the Tiger Paddlers to a “four-peat” title quest in the UAAP and was also instrumental in the UST Golden Smashers’ unprecedented “seven-peat” romp from 1992 to 1996.
