MANILA, 2 August — Glenn Aguilar and his Caltex-Revtex-KTM teammates ruled four of the seven divisions to dominate the recent fifth leg of the Superferry National Motocross series 2002 at the Perdices Coliseum, Capitol Area, Dumaguete City.
Aguilar, nicknamed The Rocket, missed the third and fourth stages of the series after a back injury sustained in the Mandaue City second leg. But as soon as he mounted his bike as a surprise entry last weekend, there was no denying the six-time national rider of the year awardee from ruling the premier Pro Open category.
Also stamping their class in their respective divisions were Kenneth “Wonder Boy” San Andres, Rodel Cameros and Brian Villaverde.
San Andres whipped his older rivals Joshua and Juvenile Abellar in the Mini-Class where his near-flawless ride gave him a perfect score of 40 points.
Cameros ruled the Expert Class while Villarde topped the Open Production.
Next stop of the motocross series is on Cagayan de Oro City on Aug. 24 and 25.
Padilla sets new RP
mark in shooting
Multititled Nathaniel “Tac” Padilla fired 572 points to establish a new Philippine record in the standard pistol competition of the national shooting eliminations for the Busan Asian Games at the PSC range in Fort Bonifacio.
The 37-year-old Padilla, general manager of Spring Cooking Oil, shot 189, 193 and 190 in the 150-, 20- and 10-second stages, respectively, to erase the 569 mark he set on Oct. 27 last year.
Tac credited his father, former Olympian Mariano “Tom” Ong, for helping him in his preparation.
Padilla also dominated his two favorite events — rapid fire pistol and center fire pistol. He shot 572 points to beat Medina (561) and his brother Donald Padilla (528) in the rapid fire and 574 to rout Gilbert Escobar (559) and Medina (557) in the center fire. Padilla collected scores of 98, 97, 96 in the 8-, 6- and 4-second stages, respectively, for a 291 total in the first round and 96, 97 and 88 for 281 in the second round to complete his remarkable rapid fire performance. In the center fire, Padilla tallied 93, 95, 94 for 282 in precision and 98, 98 and 96 for 292 in dueling.
Roach praises Peñalosa
American trainer Freddie Roach, who is supervising the training of Gerry Peñalosa at his Wild Card Gym near Hollywood, is confident the Filipino will “walk out of the ring a world champion once again” when he faces Japan-born North Korean Masamori Tokuyama in Osaka on Nov. 8.
Roach’s conditioning coach, Justin Fortune, has been putting the Filipino southpaw through a tough regimen since he started working with him last May.
Fortune told boxing writer Fiona Manning that he is impressed with the way Peñalosa had thrown himself into every aspect of a hard training program.
Fortune added Peñalosa “is willing to learn new tricks” and indicated he knew how distressed the former world champion was with the controversial decision in his title fight with Tokuyama last year.
The trainer pointed out that “you can go one of two ways with a bad decision. You can be obsessed for years or you can take that anger and beat the hell out of the guy the next time and that’s exactly what Peñalosa is going to do.”
Asiad Task Force take care of cyclists
The Asian Games Task Force has taken charge of the preparation and training of six national cyclists bound for the Busan Asian Games, an offshoot of the unending leadership dispute bugging the Philippine Amateur Cycling Association.
PSC official Ariel Paredes, a member of the Task Force, confirmed that the joint PSC and Philippine Olympic Committee body will supervise at least three road racers and three mountain bikers who recently qualified to join Team Philippines in Busan.
This developed after former Paca president Ponciano Regalado was ousted by the board following allegations that he had mishandled Paca funds.
Although Paca executive vice president Loloy Cruz assumed the Paca presidency, the PSC still can’t channel its support to the association because Cruz still has to gain the recognition of the POC.
Filipinos bag 2 golds in
World Cup karate
The Philippines’ 10-man team captured two gold, three silver and five bronze medals in the 11th KOI Karate World Cup held in Dresden, Germany recently.
The KOI World Cup is an international karate event organized by World Karate Federation (WKF) Referee Council chairman Tommy Morris.
More than 1,200 athletes from 47 countries participated in this year’s World Cup, which was held simultaneously in eight competition mats.
