HANGZHOU, China – Led by Kayla Sanchez, the 9-man Philippine swimming team broke 5 national records in the fast and furious 6 days competition in the 19th Asian Games at the city’s magnificent Swimming and Diving Centre here.

Sanchez, who played a key role in two of Canada’s swimming medals in relays in the Tokyo Games, established two individual marks in the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle apart from leading the three relay squads to three more records.

Showing she’s the new darling in PH swimming, Sanchez produced the fastest times in three relays – the 4x100m free with Xiandi Chua, Tiea Salvino and veteran Jasmine Alkhaldi, the 4x200m free with Salvino, Chua and Chloe Isleta and the 4x100m individual medley with Salvino, Tanya dela Cruz and Alkhaldi.

Quite impressive.

But the five new PH marks they accomplished pale in comparison with what the mighty Chinese did – they were almost unsinkable. 

The Chinese collected a whooping 28 golds among 58 medals they netted highlighted by 17 new meet marks and another 6 Asian marks.

Small wonder, they’re now talking about the Paris Games next year with  women’s butterfly Zhang Yufei and men’s breaststroke specialist expected to lead the team’s assault.

Despite her illness, Zhang emerged the queen of the pool with six golds – tying the most number of golds at a single Asiad event while Qin completed a golden treble in his pet events to enhance his status as of the host nation’s favorite stars, what with his good looks.

Malaysian breakthrough

The old saying of try and try until you succeed holds true for Malaysian Bin Mahamad Fathil Mohd Qabil Ambak.

Ambak, 43, finally achieved his dream of winning the gold in equestrian’s dressage individual intermediate 1 freestyle event at Angleton Equestrian Centre.

The gold medal came after 25 years since he first competed in the event that saw him collect a bronze.

Indeed, patience is a virtue.

Runaway winner 

Just as expected by many, the host nation is running away with the overall championship for the nth time

At the end of another busy day in the medal-rich athletics on Sunday, the host nation has raised its gold-haul to 133, more than 103 over second running South Korea.

The Koreans are battling intensely for No. 2 with the Japanese athletes while the rest, including the Filipino athletes, are just fighting for the crumbs.