NAGOYA-Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Patrick Gregorio and Philippine Paralympic Committee (PPC) president Mike Barredo hailed the Filipino athletes for responding to the challenge and finishing 17th overall with two golds, two silvers and three bronzes in the 5th Asian Para Games which drew to a close Saturday at the Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium.
After more than a week of grueling action, swimmers Ernie Gawilan and Arjay Alegarbes bagged gold medals, with Gawilan and table tennis mixed doubles pair of Wilfred Redulla and Lhey Manginsay contributing silvers and swimmer Raemond Adefuin, runner King James Reyes and shot putter Ma. Ravinia Carpena adding bronzes to the coffers.
The haul surpassed the Philippines’s performance in the last edition in Hangzhou three years ago when chess, which the Japanese hosts excluded from this year’s program, is taken out of the tally.
In Hangzhou, the Filipinos collected 10 golds, four silvers and five bronzes, with chess accounting for eight golds, three silvers and two bronzes.
‘It was a very successful performance, congratulations,’ said Gregorio, who flew in for the final two days of the event to cheer for the Filipinos.
‘More or less, with what we did last Para minus chess, of course, we did well,’ Barredo said.
The Philippine squad is now looking forward to the next edition in 2031 in Doha, where it hopes to make the country proud again.
‘What’s important is that we’ll continue supporting our athletes,’ Gregorio said.
Gregorio and Barredo also met with Asian Paralympic Committee (APC) president Majid Rashed to discuss plans to collaborate on building the Philippines’s first training center exclusively for para athletes.
‘One of the reasons I’m here, I met with the APC president and asked them to help develop a game center pareho ng ginawa natin sa taekwondo, football and baseball,’ Gregorio said.’