PUERTO PRINCESA, Palawan — The Philippines made a harvest of four gold medals and a silver and bronze each during the second day of the ICF Dragon Boat World Championships Friday at the world-class course overlooking the Puerto Princesa Baywalk.

Under an overcast sky but racing over calm water waters early in the morning, the hosts achieved their golden breakthrough off the bat in a wire-to-wire finish in the standard boat mixed 200-meter finals in a time of 47.07 seconds.

They won the race by two meters, holding off the late charge of the Canada (48.69) and the Individual Neutral Athlete squad composed of Russian athletes (49.03), which came in second and, respectively, in the competition backed by the Philippine Sports Commission and Tingog partylist.

Their splashing outing triggered a deluge of triumphs, with the PH women’s masters squad quickly following it up in securing the mint in the 40+ 200-meter event with a time of 49.41 seconds, edging the Czech Republic (50.84) and Hungary (52.12).

The PH men’s masters team topped the standard board 200-meter event (49.01) while its women’s counterpart added the fourth gold (55.22) in the meet organized by the Philippine Canoe Kayak Dragon Boat Federation and the Puerto Princes City government led by Mayor Lucilo Bayron.

The hosts also scrambled to take the silver medal in the men’s 20-seater standard boat open event (47.59) and a bronze in the women’s 20-seater 200-meter event (55.22) in rounding out their prolific performance in the meet highlighting the centennial jubilee of the International Canoe Federation.

“We just performed the way we trained with some slight changes. It was like full-throttle,” said national team skipper OJ Fuentes of the country’s first gold medal in the opening event of the day.

“It was very close in the last ten meters and we are happy that we got the first gold although our job is not done yet,” he added.

He reiterated the aim was to match if not surpass the haul of their predecessors in 2018 when five gold medals and two silvers were bagged the last time the Philippines saw action in the event at Lanier Lake in Gainesville, Georgia.

The Filipinos were also poised for their fifth mint after advancing to the finals of the mixed 200-meter Saturday in topping their semifinal heat in 52.06 seconds in another event that will have a bearing in their bid to qualify for the World Games in Chengdu, China in 2025.