LOURENCE “THE GUNNER” ILAGAN: SIMPLY THE BEST Multi-national champion and Asia’s top darter Lourence “The Gunner” Ilagan was born on February 11, 1978 in Paranaque City, the eldest of two boys and a girl. His father was from Batangas while his mother came from Bataan. From an early age, Lourence already showed signs of athletic ability and seemed destined to be a great darter almost from the time he could throw his first dart. His story on how he first got into the sport was unique and almost a fairy tale. It is also quite similar to a typical action movie plot of the late popular action movie hero FPJ. Sometime in 1993, then 15-year-old Lourence, as he was walking down the road in Malibay, Pasay City, passed by a group of men playing darts in the street when suddenly a dart thrown to the board bounced off and hit Lourence’ leg instead. He pulled the dart off from his leg and threw it back to the dartboard, and surprisingly hit the bullseye. Everybody was shocked. One of the players pulled the dart off from the board and gave it back to Lourence, including the other two darts. “Tira mo ulit,” (shoot the board again) shouted the other guy. Lourence got hold of the three darts and threw them one by one at the dartboard, all three darts landed inside the bullseye. With probably a little smile in his lips, he then simply walked away while everybody was looking at each other with shock and disbelief of what they had just witnessed. Does it sound like a fairy tale? Here’s one more. Lourence used brass darts on his first try at a tournament with “killers” as the mode of play, where he finished second to Chris Salinas. After his father, a dart enthusiast himself, found out that Lourence was only using brass darts, he gave his son a new set of tungsten darts as a gift. Excited with the new darts, Lourence immediately opened the box and threw three darts at the board, all hit the triple 20 as they nicely lined up in the same bracket. His very first try using tungsten darts scored a perfect ton eighty. In 2011, Lourence pulled off an unprecedented back-to-back victory when he bagged the men’s singles titles of the Philippine Cup and the Philippine Masters Cup one after the other in just two days. He went on to win more local and international events after that, but the biggest was in 2013 when he copped the “The World” soft tip dart championship in Hong Kong at the expense of compatriot Christian “The Titan” Perez to pocket the grand prize of $1 million HK dollars. These achievements are not “almost a fairy tale” anymore but heroic deeds of a great champion. Lourence’s idol was the legendary Freddie Deen whom he first met in 1993 at the Grill and Plate dart house in Makati City. Like his idol, Lourence spends eight hours of practice every single day; two hours in the morning, then another 2 hours in the afternoon and 4 hours at night. He is happily married to Geraldine Ilagan and currently using his own signature model 18-gram “Monsters Gunner Steel Tip Darts.” Right now, Lourence is aiming to qualify for the 2014-15 PDC World Dart Championship slated for December up to January, 2015 in London, England. He is currently in the top 12 bracket and must earn more points by winning in some tournaments to reach the top 10 ranks in Asia and qualify for the richest and most prestigious dart event in the world. His darting career is being managed by the magnificent tandem of Steve and Dada Dorotheo of Team One Philippines (TOP). (Lourence The Gunner Ilagan displays his winning form in this file photo)
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 01:02:05 +0000
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