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The Philippines reaches the half-century mark in golds for the fourth straight SEA Video games even because it finishes sixth within the race for the general championship
BANGKOK, Thailand – Group Philippines collected 50 golds, 73 silvers, and 154 bronzes for a complete of 277 medals because the 2025 Southeast Asian Video games got here to an in depth on Saturday, December 20.
Following a good battle for the fifth spot with Malaysia and Singapore, the Philippines ultimately completed sixth within the race for the general championship expectedly dominated by host Thailand, which captured a SEA Video games document of 233 golds to go along with 154 silvers and 112 bronzes.
Victories in basketball, seaside volleyball, boxing, softball, bowling, wrestling, and fashionable pentathlon on the penultimate day of competitors allowed the Philippines to achieve the half-century mark in golds for the fourth straight SEA Video games after it gained 149 in its 2019 internet hosting, 52 in 2021 Vietnam, and 58 in 2023 Cambodia.
Gilas Pilipinas gave the nation its fiftieth gold following its profitable title protection towards the hosts, who nonetheless settled for silver regardless of their flip-flopping on gamers’ eligibility guidelines that left the Nationals with out ample apply time as they scrambled to place collectively a crew.
“Though it pains me to say it, it was a brutal SEA Video games,” mentioned Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino in a mixture of English and Filipino, referring to the host’s dealing with of the Video games.
“However the Filipinos nonetheless prevailed.”
Whereas sixth place is the Philippines’ lowest because it additionally completed sixth in 2017, a lot of its athletes made historical past as they ended lengthy reigns by rival nations in numerous sports activities.
The Filipinas captured a historic girls’s soccer crown as they ended the two-country duopoly of Thailand and Vietnam, whom they each beat on penalties within the semifinal and remaining, respectively.
Alas Pilipinas’ Sisi Rondina, Bernadeth Pons, Dij Rodriguez, and Sunnie Villapando broke by means of as nicely, delivering the nation its first-ever girls’s seaside volleyball title as they dethroned eight-time champion Thailand.
In tennis, Alex Eala ended a 26-year look ahead to a Filipina to clinch the ladies’s singles gold after beating a pair of Thai opponents in her final two matches.
The Philippines additionally loved a resurgence in centerpiece sports activities swimming behind the smashing SEA Video games debut of Kayla Sanchez.
Sanchez earned the excellence as essentially the most bemedalled Filipino athlete on this version together with her private haul of three golds and 5 silvers because the Philippines gained greater than two swimming golds in a single SEA Video games for the primary time since 2009.
Athletics produced essentially the most medals for the nation, with 5 courtesy of EJ Obiena (males’s pole vault), Naomi Cesar (girls’s 800m), Hussein Loraña (males’s 800m), Hokett delos Santos (males’s decathlon), and John Cabang Tolentino (males’s 110m hurdles).
The sensible taking pictures crew got here in second with 4 golds, adopted by the swimming, triathlon, and fashionable pentathlon squads with three every.
Philippine Sports activities Fee chairman Patrick “Pato” Gregorio mentioned the purpose of the SEA Video games is to construct up Filipino athletes for the larger levels.
“They’re pleased they had been capable of compete as a result of the subsequent era of Olympians will come from right here,” mentioned Gregorio.
Indonesia completed a distant second behind Thailand with a 91-111-131 gold-silver-bronze harvest, adopted by Vietnam (87-81-110) at third, Malaysia (57-57-117) at fourth, and Singapore (52-61-89) at fifth. – Rappler.com
