LINARD Sultan put up a gallant stand before narrowly losing to Iran’s Seyed Amihossein Hosseinipour 6-11, 10-11, 11-4, 11-9, 9-11 in the men’s singles class 8 table tennis finals of the 4th Asian Youth Paralympic Games in Manama, Bahrain last Saturday night.
After fighting back from an early two-set deficit the 22-year-old pride of Catbalogan, Samar bounced back strongly, but was unable to sustain his drive against his rival to salvage the silver medal of the stint supported by the Philippine Sports Commission.
The right-handed Sultan had earlier swept his three matches in Group B then swamped Hong Kong’s Yoho Lau 11-3, 11-11, 11-3 in the semifinals to arrange a title showdown with Hosseinipour, who swept Indonesia’s Rifki Mamunudin 11-5, 11-3, 11-7 in the other semis encounter.
It was the fourth medal for the Philippine contingent following the gold won by swimmer Ariel J. Alegarbes in the men’s 17-18-year-old 100-meter butterfly S14 multi-class in a time of one minute and 1.96 seconds in the opening day last Friday.
Alegarbes added a silver through the 100-meter breaststroke (1:17.75) while Ronn-Russel Mitra also bagged a silver in the men’s 400m T20 race (54.65 seconds) also on the first day of the sportsfest that drew 700 athletes from 30 Asian countries.
