Reigning Asian archery champion Mark Javier battled through the effects of diarrhea all afternoon and wound up 36th in the ranking round of the men’s individual Fita 70-meter competition Saturday at the 29th Olympiad here.
Marksman Eric Ang virtually shot himself in the foot, however, with a dismal opening string and looked spent going into the second day of the trap competition at the Beijing Shooting Range.
The 100-lb Javier surged back with 333 points in the second 36-arrow half to pool 654 at the Beijing Green Archery Field and set up a knockout duel with Chinese Taipei’s Kuo Cheng-wei in one of 32 head-to-head matches on Wednesday.
Javier and Ang were the first of the 15 Filipinos to see action here Saturday, the Games’ first day of competition.
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The biggest stage of his shooting career proved to be a jolt for this diminutive marksman. And Eric Ang can’t be blamed for looking shell-shocked after bungling his date with Olympic glory.
The intrepid 37-year-old trapshooter from Laoag City took himself out of contention right away, spraying errant buck shots and missing six birds in the first string of the competition at the Beijing Shooting Range here.
Then Ang came to grief. Two shots broke the stillness of Beijing’s Fragrant Hills that framed the range but Ang failed to touch the fifth clay. A rotation later, thundering two-clap echoes still got nothing for the Filipino.
Ang stared at his feet and shook his head slightly. For perhaps the longest five seconds of his life, he just stood there, not bothering to take the spent casings off the breaches of his double-barrelled Beretta DT10 gun.
Eight points behind Pellielo and the Czeck Republic’s David Kostelecky, Ang needs a miracle to vault out of a five-man tie for 29th place in a field of 35 and into the shootoffs.
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Harry Tañamor can now heave a sigh of relief. The rest of the big guns in the light flyweight class are still feint blips on the radar.
The lone Filipino boxing hope on Friday drew a relatively untested Manyo Plange of Ghana as his first-round opponent at the Beijing Olympics here, giving his coaches wider latitude to further fine-tune his fighting form.
As expected, Harry Tañamor missed out on the three first-round byes but the selection of the Ghanian presented his handlers with a still tempting second option, according to Manny Lopez, president of the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philipipnes, and coach Pat Gaspi.
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As Team Philippines’ flag-bearer during Friday night’s opening ceremonies at the awe-inspiring Bird’s Nest, the main Olympic stadium, Manny Pacquiao became the first Filipino athlete to be so honored without ever competing in the Olympics.
Pacquiao did not ask for it, though. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo asked national sports officials in Malacañang if there was a chance that professional boxing’s international superstar could carry the flag in Beijing. Not one official dared contradict her lest she reduced the government’s assistance to sports, according to a source at the Philippine Olympic Committee.
Source: Inquirer
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