MANILA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Filipino-Chinese Agatha Wong snatched her second Wushu taolu gold medal on Tuesday, helping the host bag five medals in the 30th Southeast Asian Games Wushu taolu tournament.
Agatha Wong, the 2017 SEA Games champion and 2018 Asian Games bronze medalist, secured the first gold medal after topping the Taijiquan competition with 9.67 points at the opening day of the tournament.
The 21-year-old Wushu master captured another gold after topping the women's Taijijian on Tuesday. She scored 9.65 in the final round to easily beat eight other competitors in the event.
Wong, whose Chinese name is Wang Huamei, said after the tournament that she never imagined defending her championship on home soil, let alone grabbing two gold medals.
"I'm really happy that I delivered the golds, and I have no regrets for today," she said.
Wong's achievement helps the Philippine Wushu taolu team became the big winners with two golds, one silver and two bronzes.
Willy Wang, who retained the gold medal at Beijing 2008 Wushu Tournament, is a technical official of the tournament this time. He told Xinhua that compared to the 2017 SEA Games, the scale of wushu taolu events becomes smaller but that doesn't affect the competitiveness of the competitions.
"In fact, the athletes of Brunei and Thailand, which are not the Wushu powerhouses, performed way better than I thought," he said, adding that all the participating teams have sent their best players to feature in Manila, starting a new "athletic cycle" of Asian Games, which is the most privileged event for wushu.
During the three-day Wushu tournament that finished on Tuesday, a total of 72 Wushu masters from nine teams saw action at the World Trade Center in Pasay City, Metro Manila.
Wushu, a Chinese martial art, is composed of two disciplines at the SEA Games: sanda, which means sparring, and taolu, which corresponds to bodily forms. Both require intense discipline and meditation.
