Gymnastics world champion Carlos Yulo and wushu artist Agatha Wong spearheaded the Filipinos’ medal assault Sunday, May 15, as action in 31st Southeast Asian Games hit fever pitch in Vietnam.
Yulo blew away the competition in the floor exercise where he is the 2019 world champion and topped the still rings to raise his gold-medal haul to three, two days after ruling the individual all-around. The two-time world champion amassed 15.200 in floor exercise and 14.400 in still rings.
He is also set to see action in other apparatus Monday including his pet event vault, where he is the reigning world champion.
Wong, for her part, defended her taijijian crown to give the PH wushu squad its first gold medal.
Displaying grace and balance using a sword, the 23-year-old wowed the judges to score 9.71 points.
She upstaged closest competitors Thi Minh Huyen Tran and Tran Thi Kieu Trang of Vietnam by the smallest of margins, with Thi managing 9.70 for silver and Trang scoring 9.69 for bronze.
The triumph redeemed Wong’s silver medal finish in the taolu taijiquan event Saturday.
Later in the day, William Morrison retained his shot put gold medal by heaving 18.14 meters ahead of Thailand’s Jakkapat Noisri (17.32m) and Malaysia’s Muhammad Ziyad Bin Zolkefli (17.20m).
Other gold medals came from Kim Mangrobang in women’s duathlon and Aleah Finnegan in women’s vault of artistic gymnastics.
As of 8:30 p.m., the country is third in the overall medal tally with 20 gold, 22 silver and 34 bronze medals.
Host Vietnam currently leads the medal standings with 58 gold, 41 silver and 41 bronze medals. Thailand is at third with 21 gold, 20 silver and 37 bronzes.
Indonesia follows suit with 15-18-12 (gold-silver-bronze), then Malaysia (13-8-24), Singapore (9-12-11), Myanmar (4-4-7), Cambodia (1-3-4), Brunei (1-1-1) and Lao (0-1-5).
Timor Leste remains without a medal.