KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – It was not all good news for Philippine athletics on Saturday morning, despite Mary Joy Tabal's impressive gold medal effort in the women's marathon event of the 29th Southeast Games here.

Shortly after Tabal was formally awarded her gold medal, PATAFA President Philip Ella Juico revealed the sad news that two of their most promising medal bets suffered injuries back in Manila and thus will be unable to compete in the SEA Games.

EJ Obiena, who holds the national record in the pole vault, suffered an ACL injury in his left knee while training at the Philsports oval on Friday, while Patrick Unso, who was set to compete in the 110-m hurdles and the 4x100 relay, succumbed to a nagging hamstring injury.

"It looks like (Obiena) will undergo an operation shortly," Juico told reporters. "This is unfortunate, because as you know, EJ is already the third-best in Asia, and No. 1 in Southeast Asia."

"So," he concluded, "We lost one gold medal."

The 21-year-old Obiena, a standout from University of Santo Tomas, was a silver medalist in the Southeast Asian Games two years ago in Singapore, with a leap of 5.25-meters. He has since shattered that mark, notching a leap of 5.61-meters in Germany this June.

Unso, for his part, was also expected to make the podium in the 110-m hurdles, and was a crucial member of the 4x100 relay team that broke the national record back in April.

But Unso has been dealing with a bothersome hamstring, and finally succumbed to the injury last week.

"So, we win some, we lose some," said Juico. "We will try to make up for it by coming up with some surprises."

Nevertheless, with the injury to Obiena and Unso, the athletics team will be hard-pressed to beat its medal haul in the 2015 SEA Games, when they wound up with five golds.

"As I said, this prediction business is a very tricky one," said Huico. "Hindi mo naman akalain na Patrick will have the hamstring (injury) and si EJ will have the ACL (injury). Wala munang prediction, ang hirap eh. At least, we contributed one already to the overall tally."

The athletics chief said they are still pinning their hopes on Eric Cray, Southeast Asia's fastest man, as well as on female athletes Zion Nelson and twins Kayla and Kyla Richardson.

(For more sports coverage, visit the ABS-CBN Sports website.)