HARBIN, CHINA — The Philippine men’s curling team delivered an emphatic performance to reach the medal round of the 9th Asian Winter Games here.
Skipper Filipino-Swiss Marc Pfister, brother Enrico Pfister, lead Alan Frei and vice-skipper Christian Haller broke a four-all tie and claim the last six points to guide the Filipinos to an important 10-4 win over No. 10 Japan on Thursday in the qualification round at the Pingfang Curling Arena.
The Filipinos, who were cheered by Curling Pilipinas president Benjo Delarmente, advanced to the semifinal stage against powerhouse China for a chance to inch closer to a gold medal. They are still playing at press time.
The Philippines made it to the qualification round after tallying in three wins against only a loss — which was the 1-6 setback to South Korea in the round robin Group A last Sunday.
Meanwhile, Isabella Gamez and naturalized Filipino-Russian Aleksandr Korovin offered no excuses after placing fourth in the mixed pair free skating competition late Wednesday.
One of the country’s medal prospects in the continental games, Gamez and Korovin accumulated a total of 155.62 points behind their impressive repertoires but not enough to overshadow the tandems from Uzbekistan, North Korea and Japan.
Gamez, however, offered no excuse for not making it to the podium, saying she was a little bit mentally out in their four-minute routine with music theme “Somewhere in Time.”
They registered 99.99 points in free skate but still remained short of getting even closer to the bronze medal.
“It’s just the nerves that really caught up to me. I just wanted to represent our flag so much and be strong, but mentally I wasn’t there,” the 26-year-old Gamez said.
“So that’s what we need to improve for us to be successful and raise our Philippine flag.”
Gamez, a two-time national champion with 30-year-old Korovin, praised her partner for doing a great job in their debut, where they obtained 55.63 points for fourth place in the short program last Tuesday and qualified for the free skate the next day.
“For us, it’s not what we need to do physically, but it’s what we need to do more mentally. We need to do a quick change mentally. You know I really let myself out. Aleksandr did good, he did his job, and he did everything,” she added.
“Me? I was just a little under the weather, but I let myself go today.”
Uzbekistan’s Ekaterina Geynish and Dmitriy Chigirev nailed the gold medal with a combined total of 176.43 points from short program and free skate while Tae Ok Ryom and Kum Chol Han of North Korea bagged the silver with 168.88 points.
Japan’s Yuna Nagaoka and Sumitada Moriguchi tallied 168.35 and got the bronze medal.