Memoirs of Beijing

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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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.

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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…