Beijing Olympics: Day 12 for Team Philippines

On the 12th day of the Olympics, Beijing is hot and humid. It feels like it’s going to rain the next day. As for team Philippines, Tshomlee Go will see action at 1145am against Ryan Carneli of Australia.

I don’t have any work in the morning so I’m glad to catch up some sleep. I’ve been waiting for the match between the two of them but wasn’t able to find the channel. I just check the results online and hope for the best.

Around 12 noon, the result came and Ryan defeated Tshomlee 1 to 0. I was so disappointed. I checked the blow by blow account and it seems that Tshomlee wasn’t able to hit his opponent. I was frustrated it seems like watching Tanamor all over again. Everyone was hyping that the boxer and the taekwondo jins have the best chances to get a gold but they’re nowhere near it. I hope Toni would do better this Friday.

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Beijing Olympics: Day 11 for Team Philippines

It was a cloudy, humid and hot day here in Beijing. As usual, I’m at the Nest boring myself out waiting for that elusive call. However, at 9:40am, I went up to level 0 and watch the long jump preliminaries. In Group B, our very own Marestella Torres vied for qualifying to the finals.

She was the 16th jumper in her group and with a personal best of 6.86m. I went up that morning rooting for her as if she’s able to jump her personal best, she would be able to qualify to the finals. Jumper after jumper, foul after foul. Then I saw a glimpse of her, warming herself up. Dressed in Philippine colors, I first thought the jumper was from Brazil. However, at the back of her bikini, there stood PHI for Philippines.

First jump.. and there she runs building up a momentum then the hop? She didn’t foul but she only jumped 4.27m. I groaned and said to myself, “ano ba yan! (what was that?)”. I just pray she does better in her next jump. I went back down to the office as it will be quite a wait for her next jump as there are 42 jumpers in all for both groups.

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.

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.

Beijing Olympics: Philippines Athletes’ Schedules

On my previous blog, I’ve posted the schedule for Harry Tanamor of Boxing. On this one, I’ll give you a recap of the athletes who’ve already competed and their outcome then the remaining athletes’ schedules.

In Day 3 of the Beijing Olympics, four of our athletes have already competed. Three of them bombed out while the other one has to compete on the knockout stages. Eric Ang of Trap Shooting competed in Day 1 & 2 ended up dead last in a field of 35. First-timer Hidilyn Diaz competed today in weightlifting under 58kg category and placed 11 out of 12 athletes. She was able to lift 85 kg in the snatch and 107 in the clean & jerk category.

James Walsh competed this evening in heat #2 of the 200m butterfly and finished first in his heats clocking 1:59.39. This time wasn’t enough to move on to the semifinal round. Mark Javier of Archery competed in Day 1 for the preliminaries and got an aggregate score of 654 to placed 36 in a field of 64. He will move on to the knockout stage against Kuo Cheng Wei of Chinese-Taipei on August 13, 3:30pm.