INCHEON, South Korea—The big guns of athletics bullied their way past Filipinos with Olympian Henry Dagmil finishing 11th in long jump, Jesson Ramil Cid salvaging a decent finish in decathlon and Eric Shauwn Cray hoping to pull off a surprise in the men’s 400 meters at the 17th Asian Games.
Dagmil, a veteran on the national team along with women’s long-jump bet Marestella Torres, finished ninth in his pet event on Tuesday night, jumping to 7.43 meters in only three attempts. It was the worst jump for the 32-year-old Beijing Olympian and three-time Asian Gamer’s career.
China’s Li Jinzhe won gold with 8.01 meters, followed by South Korea’s Kim Deok-hyeon with 7.90 meters and Gao Xinglong also of China with 7.86 meters.
Cid, only 23, meanwhile, lagged behind in decathlon. He started hot by topping his heat in the 100 meters but placed eighth in long jump (6.80 meters), 10th in shotput (11.48 meters) and ninth in high jump (1.84 meters).
He showed he is good on the track by again ruling his heat in the 400 meters and placing fourth in the 110-meter hurdles. But he was ninth in discus throw and had no score for consecutive misses in pole vault.
The javelin and 1,500 meters were to be staged on Wednesday night but with 5,150 points, Cid, the only Southeast Asian in the field, could no longer complete a podium finish.
Uzbekistan’s Leonid Andreev led the event with 6,724 points, followed by China’s Guo Qi with 6,280 and Japan’s Keisuka Ushihiro with 6,571.
Cray, meanwhile, entered the 400-meter hurdles as the sixth best among the eight finalists. His time of 50.00 seconds was second to China’s Cheng Wen (49.89 seconds). Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Koblov submitted the best qualifying time of 49.40.
Image credits: AP