National University broke through in the UAAP Season 102 men"s basketball tournament after routing the University of the East, 76-56, on Saturday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
NAGOYA, Japan — South Korea won bronze in the women's team event in soft tennis at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday, its first medal in the sport at this year's competition. South Korea lost to Chinese Taipei 2-1 in the semifinals at Nagoya City Higashiyama Park Tennis Center in Nagoya, central Japan. There is no bronze medal contest in soft tennis and the two losers of the semifinals are both awarded bronze medals. Earlier in the day, the Philippines took the first bronze following its loss to Japan. The team matches take the best-of-three format, and the side that wins two matches first is the winner. Teams play two best-of-nine doubles matches and one best-of-seven singles match. In the opening doubles match, Lee Su-jin and Kim Han-sul of South Korea lost to Hsu Chiao-ying and Huang Shih-yuan 5-4. In the singles match that followed, South Korea's Hwang Jeong-mi defeated Chiang Min-yu 4-3 by rallying from a 3-2 deficit. But in the final doubles match, Eom Ye-jin and Kim Yeon-hwa fell to Zhou Yan-zhen and Lo Shu-ting 5-4. The South Korean men were also scheduled to take on Chinese
NAGOYA, Japan — Lee Jun-suk soared to gold in the men's singles teqball event at the Asian Games on Sunday, becoming the inaugural champion of the brand new sport making its Asiad debut. Lee defeated Ali Jalil Mezher Alelayawi of Iraq 2-0 (12-11, 12-5) in the final at Nagoya City Higashi Sports Center in Nagoya, Japan. Lee, 27, went undefeated on his way to the top of the podium, having won all five group matches and then both of his knockout contests. Lee's was South Korea's third gold medal of the Asian Games here. Invented in Hungary in 2014, teqball combines elements of football, table tennis, freestyle skills and sepaktakraw. It is played on a curved table, with players allowed to hit the ball with any part of their body except the hands and arms. A player must return the ball with a maximum of three touches and cannot touch the ball with the same body part twice in a row. Lee Jun-suk and his men's doubles partner Lee Tae-been had lost to Alelayawi and Abdulrahman Ahmed Radhi in the quarterfinals by 2-0 (12-9, 12-7) on Thursday, and Lee Jun-suk had his moment in the singles this tim
South Korea pounded Kazakhstan 42-18 for its second straight win in women's handball at the Asian Games on Sunday. Woo Bitna led the onslaught with 10 goals as South Korea enjoyed an easy win at Kasugai City Gymnasium in Kasugai, just northeast of the main host city, Nagoya. Lee Won-jung and Jo Eun-been had five goals apiece. The win came a day after a 48-16 rout of Hong Kong on Saturday. The women's handball tournament will not have a knockout phase this year. The top three nations out of seven after round-robin play will be the medalists. South Korea will next play Uzbekistan on Wednesday, China on Friday, Vietnam on Saturday and Japan next Sunday. Barring upsets along the way, the South Korea-Japan showdown will likely determine the gold medal. South Korea held a 4-3 lead early and then blew the game wide open with a 12-1 run, scoring one fast-break goal after another. South Korea led 18-8 at halftime and then outscored Kazakhstan 24-10 in the latter half. Coached by Lee Kye-chung, South Korea is trying to win its first women's handball title since 2018. Lee was also the team's head coach
NAGOYA — Reigning Olympic champion Ban Hyo-jin claimed bronze in the women's 10-meter air rifle shooting event at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday. Ban, the 2024 Olympic gold medalist in this event, celebrated her 19th birthday with her first Asian Games medal, after finishing with 230.4 points in the final at Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Gallery in Toyota, some 25 kilometers east of Nagoya. Hinata Taichi of Japan won gold with the Asian Games record score of 253 points, and Elavenil Valarivan of India took silver with 252.4 points. In the eight-shooter final, two series of five shots were fired at first, with shooters given 250 seconds per series and the perfect score being 10.9. Those 10 shots were followed by 14 single shots, fired on command within 50 seconds per shot. Eliminations of the lowest-scoring finalists began after the 12th shot and continued after every two shots until the gold and the silver medals were decided. Ban was in third place after the opening two series at 104.9 points, with Valarivan leading the way at 106 points and Misaki Nobata of Japan in secon
South Korea won gold in the men's modern pentathlon team event at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday, successfully defending its title. In the men's modern pentathlon final, South Korean athletes Jun Woong-tae, Lee Jong-hyeon and Seo Chang-wan scored a combined 4,779 points after competing in five events — fencing, swimming, obstacle course racing and laser run, a combination of running and shooting — at Anjo Sports Park in Anjo, just southeast of the main host city of Nagoya, Japan. It was South Korea's second consecutive gold medal in the team event, following its victory at the Hangzhou Asian Games. In the team event, the scores of each country's top three athletes in the individual competition are combined to determine the medal standings. Jun finished second, Lee third, and Seo fifth, earning a total of 4,779 points, outscoring China with 4,768 points and Kazakhstan with 4,647 points.
TOKYO (Yonhap) — South Korea picked up one silver and two bronze medals on the first day of swimming at the Asian Games in Japan on Sunday, a solid start for the country trying to match a heady success from three years ago. Kim Young-beom and Hwang Sun-woo shared the podium in the men's 100-meter freestyle at Tokyo Aquatics Centre in Tokyo, as they got silver and bronze behind Pan Zhanle of China. Kim clocked 47.65 seconds and Hwang finished in 47.79, while Pan touched the pad in 47.61. Then in the men's 100m backstroke, Lee Ju-ho collected his third straight bronze with a time of 53.94 seconds. Xu Jiayu of China won gold in 51.98, and Hidekazu Takehara of Japan was the silver medalist with 53.93. Elsewhere, South Korea had a quartet of fourth-place finishes. Kim Yun-hui finished fourth in the women's 200m butterfly in 2:09.81, just 0.14 second back of the bronze medalist, Misa Okuzono of Japan. In the next final, Kim Min-suk ended up in fourth place in the men's 200m individual medley with a time of 1:59.69. China's Wang Shun grabbed the bronze in 1:57.14. Then in the women's 1,500m, Kim
South Korea defeated the home team Japan 67-57 for the men's basketball gold medal at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday. Forward Lee Hyun-jung scored 13 of his game-high 27 points in the decisive third quarter at Aichi International Arena in Nagoya, as South Korea ended its 12-year gold medal drought in men's hoops. Lee, a former Davidson player, also led everyone with 18 rebounds. The victory capped an unbeaten run for South Korea, which had earlier defeated Japan 100-83 in the group stage last Sunday. Unlike that first meeting, this was a low-scoring affair. Japan shot only 28 percent from the field in the first half, with South Korea only marginally better at 33 percent over the first 20 minutes. South Korea built an 11-5 lead with 6:23 left in the first quarter but then was held to just one more point the rest of the frame. Both teams missed some easy looks at the rim, with South Korea in particular rushing plays on the offensive end. Japan led 16-12 after the first quarter. Kazuma Tsuya's three gave Japan a 19-12 lead early in the next quarter, but South Korean shooters found th
READ: Follow Inquirer Sports’ special coverage of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 SINGAPORE—Out for nearly a year in the pro boxing scene, Eumir Marcial announced his return with a bang on Sunday. His third consecutive Asian Games appearance, however, isn’t pushing through. The Filipino middleweight prospect delivered a spectacular third-round knockout over fellow power puncher
BANGKOK, Thailand — Former England international Andros Townsend was partially run over by a pitch roller in Thai football, but avoided serious injury in the bizarre incident. The 35-year-old former Spurs winger was warming up for PT Prachuap's game at Pattani on Saturday when the driver lost control of the vehicle. Townsend went down under the heavy roller, with the driver only stopping once the player's legs were trapped. In footage which has since been widely shared online, Townsend attempts to push the roller off as the driver leaps out to help. Townsend, who also played for Crystal Palace and Everton during an itinerant career, later made light of being run over. "It turns out Stoke away wasn't so bad after all," he wrote on social media. Townsend won 13 caps for England.
NAGOYA, Japan — The 13-year-old Chinese swimmer Yu Zidi set an Asian Games record as she scorched to gold on Sunday's first full day of competition, after hosts Japan celebrated early success. The first gold medal of the 20th edition of the two-week multisport extravaganza went to Japan's Takumi Hojo in the men's individual triathlon. In the evening it was over to Yu as the schoolgirl who turns 14 next month took the women's 200m butterfly crown in a Games-record 2min 05.08sec. It was the first major title of her young career, less than two years out from the Los Angeles Olympics. "It was only so-so," a smiling Yu said after receiving her medal, warning she can go faster yet. Yu became the youngest medalist in swimming world championships history last year when she took home relay bronze aged 12. Swimming is one of three sports at the Games taking place in Tokyo, where a typhoon is due to blow in, with the rest of the Games unfolding in Nagoya and Aichi prefecture. China are expected to be the preeminent power in the pool and they showed why on day one as they clinched six of the seven titles on the night. - 'Beautiful' - The Games were declared open on Saturday by Emperor Naruhito, but there were a large number of empty seats at the 30,000-capacity stadium in Nagoya. It sounded the starting pistol on a fortnight of intense action as the continent's finest athletes compete in more than 40 sports before the curtain comes down on October 4. The Games has 2028 Olympics places up for grabs but has been dogged by a series of problems in the build-up. Accommodating the more than 11,000 athletes and 6,000 officials has stretched organizers to the limit after they decided not to have a traditional athletes' village to save money. Competitors instead are staying in a combination of temporary container-style huts, hotels and on the Costa Serena cruise ship. IOC president Kirsty Coventry called the temporary huts "beautiful" on Sunday after having a look round -- but conceded they were "a little tighter" than similar accommodation at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics this year. - Typhoon threat - Japanese organizers will be desperate for the sport to take over from a troubled lead-in that included complaints about the accommodation and a shortage of rooms. However, an incoming typhoon that soaked Tokyo on Sunday could cause more problems. The Tokyo venue hosting equestrian was closed because of the weather. The competition is now due to start on Tuesday, a day later than originally planned. Olympic Council of Asia director general Husain Al-Musallam said the typhoon threat was part of the reason why there were thousands of empty seats at the opening ceremony. The full force of Typhoon Dujuan won't be felt until Monday, with Tokyo expected to be hit with strong winds and heavy rain. Nagoya won't be in the storm's immediate path but wet weather is forecast there too.
READ: Follow Inquirer Sports’ special coverage of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 MANILA, Philippines–Gilas Pilipinas secured a quarterfinals berth in the women’s basketball 5-on-5 event of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 after defeating Hong Kong, 90-73, on Sunday. Stef Berberabe scored 21 points while Afril Bernardino produced 17 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and two
MANILA, Philippines — Despite being out of medal contention, Alas Pilipinas wasted no time in dispatching Qatar with a dominant 25-8, 25-2, 25-9 sweep to secure its first victory in the classification round of the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan on Sunday night. The Filipina spikers were relegated to the classification stage after back-to-back group-stage defeats against defending champion China and Kazakhstan in Pool B, where only the top two teams per group advanced to the next round. Alas set a ruthless tone early, mounting a staggering 19-0 start in the opening frame before cruising to a 25-8 set win. The national squad maintained its momentum over the next two sets to wrap up the match in swift fashion. Angel Provido spearheaded the offense for Alas with a match-high 19 points, while Shaina Nitura and Bella Belen chipped in 10 markers apiece. Alas Pilipinas will next take on Mongolia in the 11th-to-12th classification round, with a victory keeping them in contention for a ninth or tenth-place finish.