Memoirs of Beijing

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.

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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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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 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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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…

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.

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I met Harry for the first time during the luncheon meeting hosted by Pres. Arroyo at the Asia Hotel in Beijing. My first impression of him was he’s a simple, humble man who doesn’t like attention and respects people. He has muscles which any man could envy but he looks so slim that a wind might blow him away. Well, what do you expect from someone competing in light flyweight division. They all can’t be more than 48 kg.

As for their group, there are 29 boxers and preliminaries will start on the 13th of August. 3 boxers drew bye and won’t see action till the 16th. For Harry, should he win all his matches, his schedule will be like this:

13 August 19:00 to 22:30 – We will see Harry in action against Manyo Plange of Ghana at 815pm (moved from 845pm).  Outcome.. Harry lost 3 to 6 against Ghana..
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Country hero Manny Pacquiao was officially confirmed as the RP Flag bearer for the upcoming Olympic Games. This position is usually reserved for Olympians only but the Beijing Games organizers gave way to the Philippine Olympic Committee’s request to have Pacquiao assume this prestigious role.

The Olympic Games will hold it’s opening ceremonies on August 8, 2008 at 8:08pm. The Philippines will be sending 15 delegates in 8 sports namely Shooting (Eric Ang), Athletics (Henry Dagmil and Marestella Torres), Boxing (Harry Tanamor), Swimming (Christel Simms, James Walsh, Daniel Coakley, Ryan Arabejo and Miguel Molina), Diving (Rexel Ryan Fabrega and Sheila Mae Perez), Taekwondo (Tshomlee Go and Mary Antoinette Rivero), Archery (Mark Javier) and Weightlifting (Hidilyn Diaz). The Philippine Embassy in Beijing is planning to have a Team Welcome Ceremony at the Olympic Village on 4 August 2008 should the Beijing Games organizers allow entry to Filipinos supporting the delegates.

The flag bearer news was announced in Philippine newspapers last July 10, 2008. So.. as usual.. my news is always late. However, I’ll keep you posted with pix and stories of the opening ceremonies which I’ll be watching live at the Bird’s Nest!