When the pressure mounted against India and Japan, table tennis para athletes Lhey Manginsay and Wilfred Redulla relied on a partnership built over just two years.
That trust carried them to the mixed doubles Class XD17 silver on Thursday, ending the Philippines’ eight-year medal drought in table tennis at the Asian Para Games.
On Friday, King James Reyes crowned his Asian Para Games campaign with a bronze medal in the men’s 1,500-meter T46, delivering the Philippines’ first athletics podium finish.
The 24-year-old native of Loreto, Agusan del Sur, who lost an arm after falling from a macopa tree at age five, clocked a personal-best four minutes and 13.81 seconds to avert a medal shutout for the Filipinos in the sport.
Sri Lanka’s Wahumpurage Puwakpitikande claimed gold in 4:03.25, while India’s Parmod took silver in 4:09.65.
Manginsay and Redulla had shown promise from the start and since joining the national squad in 2024, they won gold in their first tournament together at the ITTF Para Future Taipei.
‘We became partners right from the start in the national team,’ Redulla said.
In Aichi-Nagoya, that early promise faced a tougher test.
Trailing India by two games in the quarterfinals, Manginsay and Redulla had to overcome the nerves that came with knowing a medal was within reach and they recovered to win the next three games and secure a place in the semifinals.
Against Japan’s Koyo Iwabuchi and Yuri Tomono, whom Manginsay described as the world’s third-ranked pair, the Filipinos again found themselves in trouble, falling behind 3-8 in the deciding fifth game.
Their response was simple: one point at a time.
‘We didn’t think about the deficit, we just played on,’ they said, recalling how they worked their way back to complete a 3-2 victory.
For Manginsay, reaching the final still felt difficult to believe.
‘This feels surreal until now,’ she said. ‘We didn’t waver until the last point, we fought with all our hearts.’
Their pursuit of gold ended against China’s Zhao Shuai and Xiong Guiyan, who prevailed, 11-7, 9-11, 11-4, 11-6, at Sky Hall Toyota.
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Still, the silver ended the Philippines’ medal drought in the sport since the late Josephine Medina’s silver at the 2018 Jakarta Games.
Breakthrough performance by Reyes
KING JAMES REYES’S breakthrough came a day after the heartbreaking reversal that cost Cyril Cloyd Ongcoy bronze in the men’s 1,500-meter T12/T13.
A jury reinstated Uzbekistan’s initially disqualified Fakhriddin Khamraev as the gold medalist, relegating Ongcoy to fourth.
‘It’s my personal best,’ said the ecstatic Sports Science senior at Adamson University. ‘I knew that I could make the podium because I prepared real hard for this.’
Heading into the final day, the Philippine delegation, backed by the Philippine Sports Commission, stood 17th overall with two golds, two silvers and two bronzes.
Evaristo Carbonel and Edwin Enguito Jr. also gave their all but fell short in their medal bids.
Carbonel posted a personal best of 27.18 meters in the men’s discus throw F11 but finished fifth in the five-man field, while Enguito placed fourth in the men’s high jump T63 with a clearance of 1.63 meters.
In wheelchair fencing at the Nagoya City Inae Sports Center, Wilfredo Bugayong II and Violeta Sapalit reached the knockout rounds but bowed out of medal contention in saber.
Bugayong advanced to the men’s Category A round of 16 after defeating Hong Kong’s Lee Sheung Ho, 15-5, in the preceding round. He then fell to China’s Cheng Yang, 6-15.
Sapalit likewise exited in the round of 16, losing to South Korea’s Kim Yeji, 6-15.