Willy Wang bagged a gold medal to lead the Philippines’ seventh place finish in the recent 9th World Wushu Championship at the National Olympic Center in Beijing.

A previous world silver medalist, Wang finished on top this time, beating Indonesian Heriyanto in the Nan Quan event (Southern Fist style) of the meet that attracted nearly 1,000 wushu athletes from 89 countries.

Matsura Arata of Japan settled for the bronze medal.

The Philippines also brought home two silver and two bronze medals en route to seventh overall, a good indication of its readiness in the 24th Southeast Asian Games in Thailand next month.

Wang was a double gold medal winner in the 2005 Manila SEA Games.

Jennifer Lagilag and Mary Jane Estimar, who both competed in the women’s sanshou 48 kg and 52 kg, respectively, produced the silvers.

The bronze medals came from Marian Mariano (60 kg), also in women’s sanshou, and Benjie Rivera (56 kg) in men’s sanshou.

A native of Baguio City, Lagilag bested Naw Mar Htun of Myanmar in the semifinal but lost to Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Bich in the final match.

Estimar was outclassed in the championship round by Qin LiZi of China. She advanced to the finals with a victory over Farzaneh Dehgani Younarti of Iran.

Rivera was a gold medalist in the 52 kg class of the men’s sanshou in the 2005 Vietnam edition, but competed this time in the 56 kg division won by Zhang Shuai Ke of China.

Mariano finished behind Luong Thi Hoa of Vietnam and Zahra Karimi Vardanjani of Iran