Beijing Olympics: Day 8-10 for Team Philippines

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.

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Beijing Olympics: Day 7 for Team Philippines

Day 7 in Beijing. The sun is out and the weather is perfect! Today’s the start of the athletic events and the Olympic park is teeming with people. They even had to control the crowd going in the McDonalds shop after the games.

At 11:15am, I got the chance to watch my first Olympic match, the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Individual All-Around Final. I’ve been a fan of gymnastics since I was young watching Nadia Comaneci putting perfect 10 performances in almost all the events. Today, I watched two US athletes take the gold and silver medal from the Chinese who has been dominating in this sport for the past few days. Nastia Liukin got the gold after performing very well in the beam and uneven bars. Shawn Johnson sneaked in to second with a difficult move in Vault and a flawless performance in Floor Exercise. Yang Yilin placed third after a dismal performance in the Floor Exercise and Vault. It was quite an experience as it’s too difficult to track the athletes as all four apparatus are used one after the other. However, I’m just too happy to be able to see it live and US win.

As for Team Philippines, diver Shiela Mae Perez placed 23 out of a field of 30 and scored 251.15 in the preliminaries. She’s 122.75 points behind Chinese diving princess Guo Jing Jing. In Swimming, Christel Simms was seen in action in Heat #6 of the 50m freestyle. She placed 4th in her heat clocking in at 26.64 seconds. This is slower than her qualifying time of 26.31 seconds. Another swimmer Ryan Arabejo, swam his best and placed third in his heats in the 1500m freestyle clocking in at 15:42.27, slower than his qualifying time of 15:39.86.

Beijing Olympics: Team Philippines in Day 6

Day 6 in Beijing and the weather is as usual gray with heavy downpour early to mid-afternoon. It’s a slow day for Team Philippines as only Daniel Coakley was seen in action. Daniel is the great-grandson of two-time Olympic bronze medalist Teofilo Yldefonso who competed in the 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games.

Daniel Coakley competed in Heat #9 with a start time of 22.80 seconds. He placed 6th out of 8 swimmers clocking in 22.69 seconds. In a field of 97, he placed 39.

Tomorrow, there would be 3 athletes from Team Philippines competing namely Christel Simms (50m freestyle), Ryan Arabejo (1500m freestyle) and Shiela Mae Perez (3m springboard). Also, check out my backstage pictures during the Opening Ceremonies through this link.

Beijing Olympics: Philippines in Day 5

Day 5 in Beijing and we’re back to smog in the city. I made a mistake in my previous update and missed one athlete vying today. Four athletes will see action today namely Mark Javier (Archery), Harry Tanamor (Boxing), Miguel Molina and Christel Simms (Swimming).

As we end the day, it’s a sad day for Team Philippines. Mark Javier lost 102 to 106 against Kuo Cheng Wei of Chinese Taipei this afternoon in the first knockout stage. Christel Simms placed 4th out of 7 swimmers in Heat #2 of the 100m freestyle clocking in 56.67 seconds. Best time from all the heats is 53.60 seconds.

Miguel Molina’s 200m individual medley. He swam in Heat 2 and placed 2nd out of 7 swimmers clocking in at 2:01.61 seconds.  Harry Tanamor‘s match against Ghana ended with the other boxer winning by 6 to 3.

Tomorrow, there will only be one swimmer competing.  Daniel Coakley in the 50m freestyle at 6:49pm.  On Friday, our taekwondo jins will arrive in Beijing for their competition on the 20th & the 22nd.

In other Olympic action.. Phelps won his 5th gold today and is on track to win 8 gold in the 8 events which he would be competing.  He’s taking a rest tomorrow on the medal standing and will be back on Friday.  The Chinese women’s gymnastic team took the gold away from the US who won in Athens.  Cuba defeated 2004 gold medalist women’s volleyball team China in their preliminary games with a score of 3-2.

Till tomorrow…

Having Lunch on Taxpayer’s Money

After only a few hours of sleep on early Saturday morning, I had to wake up to attend a luncheon event at the Asia Hotel. The host of this event is President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Guests included the Filipino athletes who were already there for the Olympics as well as the flag bearer Mr. Manny Pacquiao and his “inspiration” Jinkee.

The event started at 11am with dancing from a Chinese group and the introduction of the athletes with the ‘standard’ Olympic Cheer introduced by China (heh!). My friend, Marco hosted the first part of the event while waiting for President Arroyo to arrive. Congressmen and members of the cabinet arrived a few minutes earlier than Arroyo. I was seated with the Congressman from Pampanga and Leyte. Tito Sotto was also there looking tough as the head of the Dangerous Drugs Board. Chavit Singson was also there sharing seats beside the Pacman.

When the President arrived, Consular Leyda introduced a cause which they would like to promote that day, the “World Simultaneous Breastfeeding Event”. The person in charge was quite passionate with her cause that she even encourages mothers to have their children breastfed till 6 years old. (EWW! 6?! Di na yun baby!) They’ve held Guinness Book of World Records on the most number of breastfeeding mother-child pair in one and simultaneous event. They presented a medal to the policewoman in Sichuan who breastfed 9 infants in the aftermath of the earthquake.