MANILA, Philippines – The gold just keep on coming from the Philippines as the Pinay weightlifter Vanessa Sarno snared two gold medals captured two gold and one silver in the 2019 Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships that winded up Friday, 25 October 2019, in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Sarno first won a gold in the 71-kilogram youth women’s division where she lifted a total of 209 kilograms before jacking it up by another golden lift with a 91-kilogram in the snatch event.

The weightlifter also won a silver medal in the clean and jerk event with a lift of 118 kilograms.

There is a big possibility for Sarno to join the club of new PH millionaire national athletes.

She could easily receive a cash windfall of P2.4 million gleaned from a recent cash incentive-giving event in Malacanang where a gold equals P1 million each from the Philippine Sports Commission and President Duterte. A silver nets P500,000.

During the said recognition rite in Malacanang, the PSC chair Butch Ramirez and President Duterte awarded P1 million each to gold medal winners in gymnast Carlos Edriel P. Yulo, lady boxer Nesthy A. Petecio, and pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena. Silver medalists were given half million.

Yulo and Obiena are the country’s first two national athletes to ever qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

North Korea’s Ju Hyang U won silver while Uzbekistan’s Nigora Suvonaova won three bronze medals.

Other Pinay weightlifters who also took home medals include Chariz Macawli with a silver and bronze medal while Rosegie Ramos, slammed home a  bronze medals in the 40-kg youth women’s division and women’s 49-kilogram, respectively.

Macawli took the silver medal with a total lift of 116 and 66 kg in clean and 50kg in snatch to take home the bronze.

Ramos, meanwhile, settled for the bronze after lifting 76 kg in the snatch category. (Lloyd Tagbago/IAMIGO/CNS)