A long-time rival awaited Nesthy Petecio at the other end of the ring yesterday, when she finally made her debut in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
The Tokyo Olympic silver medal winner faces top seed Lin Yu Ting of Chinese Taipei in an early clash between the top contenders in the women’s 57-kilogram class.
The winner of the 3:00 p.m. match at the Hangzhou gymnasium will book a berth into the quarterfinals.
“Dito na magkaka-alaman,” national coach Ronald Chavez said of the highly-anticipated bout.
Petecio, 32 years old, previously took the measure out of Lin during the round-of-16 of the Tokyo Olympiad.
The Filipina won their tightly-fought match by the skin of her teeth, 3-2, on her way to making the finals, where she eventually lost to gold medalist Sena Irie of Japan.
But the Asiad is an entirely new episode in the rivalry between the two.
Whereas, Lin already had a bronze medal tucked under her belt which she won during the 2018 edition of the quadrennial meet in Palembang while still fighting in the 51kg class, the Asiad is the only one lacking in Petecio’s trophy case.
“Lagi lang akong quarterfinals,” she said of the two previous stints she had in 2018 and 2014 (Incheon, South Korea), respectively.
“[Kaya] sobrang challenging ito sa akin,” she added.
Petecio, also a gold medal winner in the 2019 World Championship, will be the last of the nine-member boxing team to see action for the first time heading to the weekend, where the quarterfinals and semifinals are going to be held.
Heavyweight John Marvin was the latest Filipino fighter to advance after scoring a referee-stopped contest against Rabin of Nepal on Wednesday night, September 27.
He joins Olympic medalists Carlo Paalam and Eumir Felix Marcial in the next round as they try to give Philippine boxing its first Asiad gold since Rey Saludar (flyweight) in the 2010 edition in Guangzhou, China.
Marjon Pianar is fighting 2023 World Championship gold medalist Asadkhuja Muydinkhujaev of Uzbekistan in the round-of-16 of the men’s 71kg class, as of press time, for a berth in the quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, Somnuek Thananya of Thailand won by walkover against Rizza Pasuit, who was not with the Philippine boxing team, but was listed by Asiad organizers on the meet’s official website. (ABS-CBN News)