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Tennis ace Alex Eala, the Filipinas soccer crew, the Alas Pilipinas seaside volleyball squad, the 4x100m freestyle relay swimming quartet, taekwondo jin Tachiana Mangin, and athletics standout Naomi Cesar shine in occasions that had been dominated by rival international locations
MANILA, Philippines – Filipina athletes in numerous sports activities made “her-story” within the 2025 Southeast Asian Video games in Thailand as they claimed their locations as the brand new queens of the area.
Tennis ace Alex Eala, the Filipinas soccer crew, the Alas Pilipinas seaside volleyball squad, the 4x100m freestyle relay swimming quartet, taekwondo jin Tachiana Mangin, and athletics standout Naomi Cesar all scored breakthrough wins for the Philippines in occasions that had been dominated by rival international locations.
For the primary time for the reason that SEA Video games started staging girls’s soccer in 1985, the Filipinas captured the gold medal as they ended the decades-long duopoly of Thailand and Vietnam, whom they each beat.
Having to undergo the attention of the needle in advancing to the knockout spherical after opening the group stage with 2-1 loss to Myanmar, the Filipinas powered by, hacking out a 1-0 win over Vietnam and coasting to a 6-0 victory over Malaysia to rearrange a semifinal conflict with Thailand.
The Filipinas have been as soon as once more on the verge of elimination as they trailed 0-1 towards Thailand, however they scored a late objective in regulation courtesy of Jael-Marie Man, then held their nerve within the penalty shootout, profitable 4-2 for his or her first-ever ultimate look.
For a crew that did not make it previous the group stage within the 2023 Cambodia version, a visit to the gold-medal match would have already been a big achievement, however the Filipinas got here for an additional piece of historical past.
Dragging a Vietnam aspect searching for its fifth straight title to a shootout after a scoreless draw, the Filipinas held their composure anew, with Man, Alexa Pino, Hali Lengthy, Angie Beard, Ariana Isabella Markey, and Jaclyn Sawicki all changing on their penalties and goalkeeper Olivia McDaniel delivering the save that sealed the 6-5 win.
“Persons are at all times doubting us and speaking about us and saying we don’t belong right here. However we belong on this dialog, we belong at the highest, and we’re simply persevering with to show that many times, and we wish to be regulars on the high,” stated McDaniel.
The identical occurred for the Alas crew of Sisi Rondina, Bernadeth Pons, Dij Rodriguez, and Sunnie Villapando as they clinched a maiden girls’s seaside volleyball gold for the Philippines by dethroning the nation that had held the throne for many years.
Again for redemption after seeing its medal streak finish in 2023 following bronze finishes in 2019 and 2021, Alas allowed the Philippines to develop into the one different nation to win the occasion after Thailand nailed all the earlier eight titles.
The Rondina-Pons duo and Rodriguez-Villapando tandem received their respective matches in a shocking ultimate sweep of Thailand, which reached the gold-medal match because the heavy favourite after going unbeaten within the round-robin preliminaries.
“We wished to redeem ourselves as a result of we missed the rostrum final SEA Video games. That is for individuals who believed in us,” stated Rondina.
In tennis, Eala bagged the Philippines’ first girls’s singles gold in over twenty years when she swept previous Thailand’s Mananchaya Sawangkaew, 6-1, 6-2, within the ultimate.
The best-ranked Southeast Asian WTA participant, the world No. 53 Eala received all her matches in straight units en path to the title that positioned her in an unique membership with Maricris Fernandez (1999) and Pia Tamayo (1981), the one different Filipinas to win the occasion.
It was one other feather within the cap for Eala, who has loved an excellent 12 months that noticed her attain a career-high world rating of No. 50 and win a Grand Slam predominant draw match within the US Open.
“I’d been dreaming for a very long time to deliver that form of satisfaction to the Philippines. I’m so grateful and I’m so humbled to have the ability to signify our nation,” Eala stated.
Whereas there have been many Filipino taekwondo champions within the SEA Video games, Mangin struck gold in a division that had been a site of Thailand.
A SEA Video games first-timer, Mangin dominated the girls’s 49kg class as she beat house guess Kamonchanok Seeken within the ultimate, stopping Thailand from profitable gold within the occasion for the ninth straight version.
That eight-gold streak included 4 in a row from two-time Olympic champion Panipak Wongpattanakit, who retired following her triumph within the 2024 Tokyo Video games and handed the torch to a worthy successor in Seeken, a silver medalist within the World Taekwondo Championships.
However the 18-year-old Mangin bought the higher of Seeken and strengthened her standing as the way forward for Philippine taekwondo.
Swimming additionally noticed the top of a protracted reign by a regional powerhouse as Kayla Sanchez, Xiandi Chua, Chloe Isleta, and Heather White surprised Singapore in profitable the girls’s 4x100m freestyle relay.
The quartet clocked 3 minutes and 44.26 seconds for the quickest time within the occasion in six years to beat Singapore, which settled for the silver for the primary time since 2013, after ruling in every of the previous 5 SEA Video games.
It marked the primary time the Philippines topped the ladies’s 4x100m freestyle relay in SEA Video games historical past and set the tone for a three-gold, nine-silver, and two-bronze haul for your entire swimming crew.
Sanchez received three golds and 5 silvers in whole to develop into essentially the most bemedaled Filipino athlete on this version, a feat that may web her P1.2 million in money incentives.
Though simply 16 years previous, Cesar stamped her class in an occasion that had witnessed Vietnam dominate for many years as she emerged victorious within the girls’s 800m.
Cesar dethroned defending champion Nguyen Thi Thu Ha in a photograph end, denying Vietnam a 14th consecutive gold within the occasion.
The daughter of former nationwide crew trackster Ben, Naomi delivered the primary SEA Video games gold to the Cesar family earlier than her older sister Malea adopted go well with by serving to the Filipinas go all the best way.
“I’m so honored and I’m at all times so proud to signify the nation. To win gold is a dream come true,” stated the youthful Cesar. – Rappler.com
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