Vanuatu claimed another gold in table tennis on Saturday morning, with Ham Lulu and Yoshua Shing collecting gold in the men’s doubles to retain their title.
Lulu and Shing received their medals from Mr Mok, the founder of table tennis in Vanuatu, and their native sandalwood trees (awarded to all Vanuatu 2017 medalists) from Ham’s sister Anolyn, Vanuatu’s most famous table tennis player.
PNG’s Geoffrey Loi and Gasipa SepaSimoi collected silver in the men’s doubles, while New Caledonia’s Adrien Cerveaux and Jeremy Dey got bronze.
In the women’s doubles, the New Caledonian pair of Lorie La and Ornella Bouteille won gold, Fijian sisters Grace and Sally Yee picked up silver, and Vanuatu’s Anolyn Lulu and Leopa Santhy collected bronze.
The table tennis competition concludes on Saturday night, and Ham Lulu says Vanuatu is hopeful of collecting all three medals in the women’s singles.
“We have three girls in the semifinals so hopefully we’ll get three more medals today in the women’s – gold, silver and bronze,” Lulu told the Vanuatu 2017 Games News Service.
That scenario remains possible after Stephanie Kwea defeated Anolyn Lulu, while Priscilla Tommy defeated New Caledonia’s Lorie La, leaving Kwea and Tommy to face off in the gold medal match and Anolyn to play La for bronze.
In the men’s singles, Yoshua Shing is Vanuatu’s only remaining medal hope and faces Fiji’s Wang Qi in the semifinal.