GUANGZHOU — South Korea made its move in three fronts Friday, crushing the gold medal hopes of the Philippines along the way in the 16th Asian Games.

Halfway through the Games marred by a first doping scandal, the Filipinos have two golds, one silver and five bronzes, the latest coming from Tshomlee Go whose bid for the country’s first gold medal in taekwondo was torpedoed by Korean Lee Dae Hoon.

The Philippines also saw its gold medal dreams dashed in golf and bowling where the Koreans looked poised for a clean sweep.

The Filipinos also lost in chess (3-1) and women’s softball (5-0) at the hands of China.

The only bright spot came in tennis where Cecil Mamiit and Treat Huey won their singles matches and teamed to beat Japan in doubles.

Mamiit pulled off a tough 7-5, 7-5 win over Martin Sayer of Hong Kong while Huey crushed Kumar Adhikari of Nepal, 6-1, 6-0.

In doubles, Mamiit and Huey defeated Japanese Hiroki Kondo and Go Soeda via tiebreak after splitting the first two sets, 4-6, 7-6.

The Filipinos advanced into the quarterfinals against Yi Chu-Huan and Lee Hsin-Han of Chinese-Taipei on Saturday.

Following the loss of Go, the country’s top gold medal prospect in taekwondo, Filipino boxers are increasingly feeling the pressure of matching their two-gold medal haul in Doha, Qatar in 2006.

Light welterweight Delfin Boholst, the only holdover from Doha, was again eliminated in the first round, this time by Tuvshinbat Byamba of Mongolia who posted an 8-1 win.

Boholst joined Charly Suarez in the sidelines. Only Annie Albania has not seen action so far in the small six-man boxing team.

As China surged to 122 gold medals, leaving South Korea (40) and Japan (24) in its wake, a judo athlete from Uzbekistan was stripped of the silver medal due to doping.

Urine specimen from Shokir Muminov was found to contain methylexaneamiune, a prohibited substance.

Taekwondo finally produced a medal after three days, but the medal brought pain more than relief.

Go, a silver medallist four years ago in Doha, Qatar, came up short against Kim who scored in each of the four rounds for a 5-4 win in the men’s under 63-kilogram bout.

Although Go managed to connect with a head kick in the third round, it wasn’t enough to overhaul Kim’s lead.

On the way to the semifinals, Go disposed of Reza Naderian of Iran, 9-7; and Khusrav Giyosov of Tajikistan, 11-3, in the quarterfinals.

Two other fighters failed to reach the quarterfinals.

Jeffrey Figueroa won his first bout against Rashed Khanis of United Arab Republic, 5-3, but lost the tiebreak over Farkhod Negmativ of Tajikistan in the men’s under 68 kg. bracket.

Maria Manalo, on the other hand, was beaten by Dhunyanu Premwhaew of Thailand, 2-5, in the preliminary match of the women’s under 62 kg.

After leading the tournament for two days at the Golden Lake Golf Club, Miguel Tabuena slipped to second behind Korean Kim Meen Whee who fired a 67 to seize a six-shot lead in the men’s golf individual event.

The Koreans also led the Filipinos and Thailand by 27 shots in the men’s team event and appeared untouchable in the women’s event as well.

In bowling, the Koreans finished 1-2 in the men’s trio event and led Singapore by 40 pins in the distaff side.

Biboy Rivera, Frederick Ong and Chester Ong were the best-placed team in the men’s event at ninth, combining for 1900, 143 pins off the pace.

The other PH squad of Collins Jose, Benshir Layoso and Raoul Miranda were farther back at 26th with 1736.

The women’s squad of Liza del Rosario, Liza Clutario and Marianne Daisy Posadas fared better in sixth spot with 1952, just 99 pins off Koreans Jin A Choi, Yun Hee Son and Sun Ok Hwang.