ANKARA, TURKEY—Three battle-tested sanda (formerly sansou) Filipino warriors and a neophyte of the international arena advanced to the round of 16 at the start of the 78-nation Wushu World Championships  at the Ankara Sports Arena on Monday.

Mixed martial arts practitioner Edward Folayang, Mark Eddiva and 2007 world series bronze medallist Benjie Rivera all won convincingly in their weight classes while 2011 Philippine National Games kingpin Francisco Solis started sluggish but finished strong to stay alive in the meet that lured more than 600 athletes.

Still feeling sporadic pain from his nose that was dislocated in a Southeast Asia MMA match a month ago, Folayang, a 27-year-old teacher from Baguio City, ousted a Vietnamese migrant of France, Hama Jean Luc, in the 70 kgs division.

“Mas maganda po ang tsansa ko sa weight class na ito at kaya ko naman po ang adjustments,” said Folayang, who had to lose roughly 12 pounds quickly in abandoning an appearance in his usual turf of 75 kgs category that is now crowded by China, Iran and a number of European countries.

Eddiva, bronze medallist of the 2010 Asian Games in China, appeared to be the most comfortable of the four as he completely bewildered Ryan Badran of the United States, who could not even touch the Filipino in their 65 kgs fight.

The head judge ordered the stoppage of Rivera’s conspicuously one-sided match against Italian Simeone Lo Presti in the second round that turned out to be the most impressive of the four wins while Solis dropped the first round to Azerbaijan’s Rafael Tarverdiyev but returned with a barrage of accurate punches in the succeeding round.

Matches in sanda or the full contact discipline of wushu, where competitors are allowed to punch, kick and wrestle an opponent to the ground or even push him out of the elevated arena, are decided via best-of-three rounds.  Referees and judges in wushu shun prolonged clinches.

Due to the short list in the women’s and men’s 52 kgs category, Ilongga Mary Jane Estimar and Dembert Arcita moved to the quarterfinal round after drawing first round byes which means both need only to win once to enter the medal race on Wednesday.