Sorry for the delay in updates. It’s either I’m catching up on sleep or I’m stuck at the Nest with no access. You might wonder how come my update is for day 8-10 right? Well.. Team Philippines is taking a rest in Day 9 & 10 so I just bundle it up into one.
Day 8 in Beijing saw the 2nd blue sky day. I had to come in early as I will watch the boxing matches in the evening. I’m a bit sad to have missed Henry Dagmil’s long jump preliminaries last night.
Henry Dagmil’s entry to long jump was not by qualifying any of the matches but as a requirement made by the IAAF. They required us to send two athletes which we did and both for long jump. Henry entered the event with a personal best of 7.99m. He placed 34th in a field of 38 and missed his best by 0.41m. He achieved 7.58m in his first jump and fouled the next two jumps.
Team Philippines will be back on Tuesday with long jumper Marestella Torres jumping into action at 9:40am. I’ll take my morning break in time to see her jump and hopefully can get some good shots to post here.
In other related events, early Saturday evening, I met my friends at the Adidas store in Sanlitun. It’s the biggest in Asia and it’s packed with people. My friends bought the China team jacket and were mistaken for athletes of the Chinese team. Some Chinese even asked to have pictures taken with them so it was quite funny. Anyhow, it was nice to see some matches that night. It wasn’t as thrilling as cheering for your own country but it was different to see an actual boxing match. Zou from China almost got defeated and I was quite sad to see the judges gave him the match. The score was a draw but the judges said that he scored the most punches. Yanez of the US gave an exciting bout against the Mongolian but it wasn’t enough for him to win. The Brazilian pummeled Tanamor’s defeater Plange with a score of 21-12. The Ghanian gave a good fight but he was really outclassed by the Brazilian.
Day 8 highlights:
- Phelps picked up his 7th gold in a narrowing race at the 100m butterfly final.
- For the Chinese men’s basketball team, it was a time to rejoice for the underdogs as they clinched one of the eight spots in the quarterfinal matches. This was a sweet victory for the Chinese as they weren’t expected to place in the quarterfinals. They defeated Germany with a score of 59-55. Their last preliminary match will be against Greece this coming Monday at 2:30pm.
- Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the 100m sprint clocking in at 9.69 seconds. (Wow! That’s fast!)
- Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka scored gold in men’s tennis double. It’s Federer’s first Olympic Gold medal.
Day 9 highlights:
- Michael Phelps made Olympic history claiming his 8th gold in the 4x100m medley. He broke Spitz record of 7 golds in Munich.
- Lin Dan of China showed his opponent why he’s the number one badminton player in the world.
- Rafael Nadal snatched the gold medal from Fernando Gonzalez in 3 straight sets tonight.
- Russian women dominated the tennis singles event with Elena Dementieva winning the gold.
- Diving princess Guo Jingjing picked up her second gold medal in the 3m springboard.
Claudine on the Go 
Pwede ninyo ako bigyan ng pahayag tungko sa mga athletang pinoy na nakilahok sa beijing olypics. pwde siya nakatagalog?
salamat.
ang gusto kong malaman ay ang larong Lawn tennis, teakwondo, at saka swimming..
maraming salamat