Memoirs of Beijing

I know.. I know.. The Olympics ended two weeks ago and what the heck am I writing about more Olympic news. I was supposed to write this a week ago but was either lazy to do it or too much work to do. Anyhow, in a sport where the older you get, the difficult it is to compete, this German female gymnast overcame it all and manage to win a Silver medal in the vault category in Beijing.

When her fellow Chinese gymnasts’ age are being questioned, no one can tell her that she’s not allowed to compete. Oksana Chusovitina is 33 years old and has been competing way before her fellow competitors are even born. This is her fifth Olympics for her third team (Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, Germany). She was even on the same team as the father of the all-around individual women’s gold medalist Nastia Liukin of the US.

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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.

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