Wong bags 5th wushu gold; jins deliver
‘I was really happy I was able to get third place (in taijiquan).’
Photograph COURTESY OF SEAG POOL AGATHA Wong displays grace under pressure in the taijiquan event of the wushu competition of the 32nd SEA Games.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Agatha Wong left Manila with a lot of doubts.
Now, she's going home with her fifth Southeast Asian Games gold medal hanging around her neck.
The lovely 24-year-old wushu artist delivered yet another flawless performance to secure the gold medal in the taijiquan+taijijian event Friday at the Chroy Changvar Convention Center Hall A here.
Despite displaying a deadly brew of beauty, power and athleticism, Wong registered 9.580 points to finish third behind Malaysia's Sydney Chin (9.640) and Brunei's Basma Lachkar (9.610) in taijiquan.
But she returned to score 9.683 points in taijijian — an event she has been ruling since the Kuala Lumpur Games in 2017 — to post a commanding total score of 19.263 points.
Chin settled for the silver medal with 19.196 points following a 9.556 performance in the taijijian and Lachkar took the bronze with 19.160 points after a 9.55 output on her second stint on the floor.
Wong said she would have been happy to settle for bronze so winning her fifth gold medal in the biennial meet came as a pleasant surprise.
"When I left the Philippines, everybody was expecting me to win when I couldn't expect myself to win. It's hard to manage that mentally," said Wong, who is juggling two tough roles of being a national athlete and a medicine student at the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.