Beijing Olympics: Last Day and Recap for Team Philippines

It’s hot in Beijing during the last day of the Olympics. Only a few matches left most notably the men’s basketball finals between the US “Redeem Team” and Spain. The US team won 118-107 with Dwyane Wade scoring 27 points. They’ve redeemed themselves after placing third in the Athens Game.

In the demonstration sport of Wushu, Team Philippines picked up 1 silver and 2 bronze medal in the last day. Mary Jane Estimar picked up a silver medal in the Women’s 52kg Sanshou category. Mariane Mariano and Benjie Rivera picked up a bronze medal each in their respective categories in Sanshou. Just like my brother said, hearing the Philippine national anthem played in the games is enough. Let’s hope that they will continue with this sport till it becomes a regular sport in the future games.

That’s the end of Team Philippines’ journey in the Beijing Olympics. We ended with no golds but we went home with rich experience and determination to improve ourselves to do better in London 2012. Till the next Olympics.. hopefully, I’ll get a chance to work in London.

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Recap on Team Philippines athletes:

• Eric Ang (Men’s Individual Trap Shooting) – tied 32nd to 35th place out of a field of 35.

• Hidilyn Diaz (weightlifting) – finished 11th out of 12. Break her personal record and was able to get a total score of 192.

• James Walsh (200m butterfly : swimming) – finished 1st in his heats clocking in at 1:59.39. First swimmer in Southeast Asia to go below 2 minutes in this event.

• Mark Javier (archery) – placed 36th in the preliminaries out of a field of 64. Was defeated by Kuo Cheng Wei of Chinese-Taipei in the knockout stage.

• Christel Simms (swimming) – clocked in 56.67 seconds in the 100m freestyle event and clocked in 26.64 seconds in the 50m freestyle.

• Miguel Molina (swimming) – 200m individual medley : 2:01.61 minutes and

• Harry Tanamor (boxing) – defeated by Manyo Plange of Ghana in the first knockout stage.

• Mary Antoinette Rivero (taekwondo) – defeated by Sandra Saric of Croatia in the round of 16.

• Tshomlee Go (taekwondo) – defeated by Ryan Carnelli of Australia in the round of 16.

• Marestella Torres (long jump) – injured her left knee and was only able to jump 6.17m in her last attempt.

• Henry Dagmil (long jump) – placed 34th in a field of 38 long jumpers and cleared 7.58m in his first jump.

• Daniel Coakley (swimming) – improved his personal record in the 50m freestyle from 22.80 seconds to 22.69 seconds.

• Shiela Mae Perez (diving) – placed 23rd out of a field of 30 scoring 251.15.

• Ryan Arabejo (swimming) – joined in the 1500m freestyle and clocked in at 15:42.27 minutes.

• Ryan Rexel Fabrega (diving) – placed 28th out of a field of 30 for an aggregate score of 358.

• Willy Wang (wushu) – won the gold medal in the combined nanquan and nangu event.

• Mary Jane Estimar (wushu) – won the silver medal in the 58kg sanshou.

• Mariane Mariano (wushu) – won the bronze medal in the 60kg sanshou.

• Benjie Rivera (wushu) – won the bronze medal in the 56kg sanshou.

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