PITTED against a two-time world silver medalist, Filipino rookie Sophia Nicole Novino held her ground for nearly four minutes before tapping out and losing to Kazakhstan’s Karakat Rakhybay in the women’s youth -47-kilogram final of the 11th Asia-Oceania Sambo Championships presented by the Philippine Sports Commission Wednesday night.
Appearing in her first major international meet, Novino was fearless against Rakhybay, fighting to a 1-all standoff early in the match before finally succumbing to her more experienced rival at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
A back-to-back silver medalist in the world youth meet in the 2024 and 2025 editions held in Cyprus and Indonesia, respectively, Rakhybay pinned Novino down with 24 seconds left in the four-minute bout, forcing the Filipina to surrender.
Still, Novino’s silver medal was the best performance so far for the host country, which captured three bronze medals in the junior men’s combat sambo on day one of the competition organized by the Pilipinas Sambo Federation Inc.
The three bronzes were from Johan Matthew San Miguel, Daniel Justin Virtudazo and Julian Henry Flores in the -58kg, -88kg and -98kg weight classes, respectively.
“Hindi lang po ito malaking news sa akin pero malaking learning po (This is not only big news for me but also big learning),” said Novino, who sobbed after losing to her rival, unaware at first that she battled a world-class grappler in the final.
“This is her first major sambo international tournament but Sophia did very well against a very strong opponent. She put on a good show so I am proud of her,” said national sambo team coach Jerry Legaspi, referring to the 17-year-old judo varsity athlete from University of the East.
“She is relatively new to the sport so naninibago pa coming from a judo background, but she will learn from this experience and definitely will do better next time,” Legaspi added.
Scheduled to see action today is top gold medal bet and defending women’s sport sambo +80kg divison champion Sydney Sy in the four-day tournament.