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| Christi Espolong tries to get out of Zarina Yergen's grapple hold. PSC-POC Media Pool |
MANILA—Christi Espolong captured the second silver medal for the Philippines in its Asia-Oceania Sambo Championships home stand on Friday night at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
However, the quest for gold remains a tough one for the host country as Kazakh opponent Zarina Yergen denied Espolong of the championship in the junior women's combat sambo -59kg division with an 8-0 win.
While Espolong, a muay thai specialist, kept her stand-up game going in the first minute, a strong takedown worth four points set the tone for Yergen to dominate the match.
Yergen scored another two-point takedown and eventually activated the mercy rule when she kept Espolong from getting out of her ground hold for a long time.
Despite the defeat, Espolong remained gracious of her international sambo tournament debut amid a two-week notice.
"This is an exciting experience, and I would definitely recommend this because this is not well known in the Philippines," said the 19-year-old Pasig native currently studying mass communication at National University.
Meanwhile, three more bronzes were added to the Philippine medal collection on Friday from Johan Matthew San Miguel, Daniel Justin Virtudazo, and Julian Henry Flores in junior men's combat sambo in the -58kg, -88kg and -98kg classes, respectively.
All eyes will now shift to the women's sport sambo +80kg tournament on Saturday as Sydney Sy will try to defend her championship in front of her hometown fans.
