After the Philippine women’s sepak takraw broke new ground at the Asian Games, the disappointment of falling short of gold gave way to meaning and understanding.
A silver medal. A first trip to the Asian Games final. All that after years of coming up empty.
‘All the exhaustion and failures from our previous competitions flashed back,’ Jean Marie Sucalit said. ‘It hurt every time we returned to the Philippines without a medal. Now, by God’s grace, we finally have one. And it’s a silver.’
Sucalit, team captain Abegail Sinogbuhan and substitute Nelly Jay Saron delivered the Philippines’ best-ever Asian Games finish in sepak takraw after reaching the women’s doubles final at the Aichi-Nagoya Games.
The Filipinos settled for silver on Tuesday after Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, Nguyen Thi Khanh Ly and Le Thi Hong Lien fashioned a 15-8, 15-4 victory at Mizuho Park Gymnasium.
The loss did little to diminish a breakthrough campaign for a Philippine women’s team that arrived hoping simply to reach the podium.
‘I have mixed emotions because we really didn’t expect to reach the final,’ Sinogbuhan said. ‘We just prayed to the Lord that we would win a medal of any color at these Asian Games. We finished the doubles event and the Lord gave us this silver medal. It feels so good.’
The Philippines went 2-1 in Group B, defeating host Japan and India before losing to South Korea, then swept Laos, 15-12, 15-10, in the semifinals to secure its first women’s sepak takraw medal and first appearance in an Asian Games final.
Vietnam denied the Filipinos one last piece of history.
The Vietnamese began pulling away midway through the opening set of the final and never allowed the Philippines to close the gap. They carried that momentum into the second, building an early advantage before completing the straight-set victory.
Still, the silver gave Philippine sepak takraw plenty to celebrate.
‘Nothing but great pride and honor,’ Sepak Takraw Pilipinas president Karen Tanchanco-Caballero said. ‘All their hard work, not just for months but for years, led to this. We needed this break for a long time.’
Tanchanco-Caballero said she chose to sit with the team as its manager during the competition rather than watch from her position as federation president.
‘I wanted to share this journey with them,’ she said. ‘All the sacrifices that they’ve been through.’