CEBU CITY – Storming back from a poor performance the previous day, Ada Lagrada anchored Olympus Archery Club to a pair of victories in the recurve Under-21 women’s team and mixed team events, respectively, to emerge as the most bemedaled athlete at the end of the 1st Asean Youth Archery Championships here Saturday.
Learning her lessons from her heartbreaking loss in the Olympic round finals of the women’s recurve singles to teammate Charlene Santos last Friday, Lagrada was deadly accurate in adding two more mints to her collection in the competition.
The world youth meet veteran combined with teammates Santos and Alexis Samantha Pioquinto in outclassing the Singaporean trio of Celestine Choo, Janice Lau and Tabitha Yeo 5-1 (50-49, 50-42, 49-49) in capturing the women’s team gold in the tournament.
Lagrada then joined hands with Jonathan Ebbinghans Reaport in whipping the University of Baguio Archery Club pair of Renian Keith Nawew and Faith Anne Laruan 5-1 (31-26, 28-27, 32-32) to cap a fruitful day at the Dynamic Herb Sports Complex.
She boosted her medal collection to four, counting her gold in the qualifying round and silver in the Olympic round, of the inaugural international youth tournament organized by World Archery Philippines.
“I was able to make proper adjustments after my loss to Charlene last Friday and executed better today so I am happy to help our team,” explained Lagrada, 19, of her better outing in what could be her first and last outing in the Asean Youth Archery championships.
“This is a bittersweet experience because I believe this will be my last Asean Youth tournament since I will be turning 20 early in May next year and might not be eligible compete for the next one. It could be in the next two years so I will be overaged by then,” she added.
