Janry Ubas averted a medal shutout for Team Philippines at the 2023 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships after capturing the men’s heptathlon bronze medal in record-breaking fashion in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan Sunday, Feb. 12.
The Misamis Oriental native secured the podium finish by tallying 5.246 points, erasing the national indoor mark of 4,565 points set by Jesson Ramil Cid in the Asian Championships in Hangzhou, China in 2014.
Japan made a 1-2 finish with Yuma Maruyama clinching the gold medal with 5,801 points and Keisuke Okuda pocketing the silver with 5,497 points.
Ubas wrested the lead by topping the high jump event in the fourth discipline and stayed in the medal hunt by digging deep from experience despite being unable to bring his own vaulting poles and bugged by piriformis syndrome on his right thigh that got aggravated by the long flight and short recovery.
Aside from a new national indoor mark in heptathlon, Ubas also reset the new indoor record in long jump with a 7.66m leap, eclipsing the previous record of 7.64m posted by Donovant Arriola in Albuquerque, United States in 2015.
This was only the second time that the country snagged a medal in the said prestigious championships since Eric Cray won the bronze in the men’s 60m in the 2016 Doha edition.
Meanwhile, Leondard Grospe shattered his new national indoor mark in the high jump of 2.15m for seventh place.
A day to his final event, the Mapua University standout already surpassed the old mark of 2.09m made by Tyler Ruiz in Naperville, United States in 2014 by posting 2.14m to advance to the medal round.
Sarah Dequinan also set a new national indoor record in women’s high jump during her pentathlon event, clearing 1.66m to break the previous mark of 1.60m set by Maureen Schrijvers in Biñan, Laguna in 2014.