SUPPORT TEAM PHILIPPINES..

pinoy athletes, for the nation's glory & honor, push to the limit!

God bless..

asuncion siblings' badminton match slated today.. the best of luck!

baseball team- winless in the 6 game round-robin series.. worse, we were down by 8 to 15 points in our matches..

i really appreciate the athletes' effort (of course they have it, right?) to bring home medals for the nation's glory. i'm just disappointed that nothing seems to be paying off. it's day 6 of the games. too early to call it a failure but as days go by, our chances of getting medals are slimming. it's also a dismal that there are sports which are practically non-medal pits for the philippines (e.g. soft tennis , table tennis, baseball etc.) our athletes participated in.

well, it's good that filipinos are starting to develop in these sports but it's not yet the right time to compete in the asian level. our athletes in these sports need more practice and improvement. and yes, this asian games is an exposure but i just can't give up the fact that we spend a lot of money in sending our not-so-prepared competitors, not to mention the allowance and added expenses, and don't get commendable results. i guess it would be more strategic to discover potentials first, enhance their skills, let them undergo thorough practices and then expose them when they're competitive enough. anyway, i'm not saying that it's a waste to include these sports men and women in the delegation, it's just that we could have obtained more and better gains from the money, time and effort we gambled for the meet.

back to the sports event proper. many filipinos have already been booted of their respective disciplines.
we're already done on these: beach volley, soft tennis, badminton (just a while ago ), baseball, table tennis, judo, cycling road, weightlifting (our man wasn't able to finish! ).. some were just short of securing a medal, like miguel molina in a swimming event and jethro dionisio in shooting. we placed quite well or rather not too bad in some events of these sports: gymnastics (our lone rep placed in one ind. final), shooting, beach volley, chess, swimming, cycling road, rowing, etc.

we still await good performances in our 3 B's (billiards, bowling, boxing). we were out early on some snooker matches but billiards is yet to come. bowling, we haven't played that well but we stay on the contention since there are a number of events still to be played. and boxing also has stakes, only 1, as of now, was eliminated from the prelims- frances joven of welterweight. taekwondo looks good as well with our finely trained & well exposed jins- geisler, domingo, tshomlee & mary rivero on top of the line. add young japoy there.

golf, karatedo, wushu, sepak takraw, archery, athletics, equestrian, bodybuilding, sailing, squash, tennis, cycling track, water polo, diving, fencing, triathlon and wrestling keep us in spirited anticipation. as always, the best of health, shape and luck to our brave pinoy fighters! God bless. bring home the glory!

oh, i forgot to include canoe in the list. another sport which can be a medal provider for us. possible? uh, let's pray.

yesterday was still a hazy day for the nation as our athletes weren't yet able to put the philippines in the medal standings. however, we had some who still fared well in their disciplines. molina finished 5th in his 400m medley finals. roel ramirez placed 6th in the vault event of artistic gymnastics. on the other hand, our bowling trios were on the 5th & the 6th spots and markwin tee now places 5th in the all-events with one more event (5-team) left to be played later. some bad news for the chess team, we lost to vietnam 2.5-0.5. our lady swimmers aren't that aggressive in their events. (how i miss guerrero, pangilinan & mendoza). our water polo team lost to korea, though i have to confirm it yet.

9 days of sporting celebration still to go. hope we get our best form today and eventually start hauling medals for the nation. good day & the best of luck. God is good!

how sad. a korean equestrian rider died while participating in the cross country event.. tsktsk. i hope accidents won't happen again.

the jin geisler out already. but japoy is through to the quarterfinals. kathleen alora & veronica domingo also won in their respective matches.

^ I believe Japoy won a bronze. Yeah, I think Geisler is past his prime already.

We're also assured of at least one bronze in Boxing c/o Payla.

So far, it's been a little disappointing. I think we won 26 medals in the last Asian Games (Busan). Now we'll be lucky if we got to 10. (I'll happily eat my words though).

I think we still have a chance in Bowling (the group event). Markwin Tee is playing (ATENEAN!). It'd be cool if an Atenean won a gold in the Asian games.

Goodluck team Philippines. Go Pinoy!

no, japoy could have assured himself a bronze had he won the quarterfinal match. it was disappointing coz he had convincing wins before he bowed to the bahraini/bahrainian opponent.

geisler was a real frustration. is his age an excuse? know roberto cruz? he competed til his 30's.. i know geisler could make it. there's just something that tells me he didn't prepare enough and took it like a piece of cake.. hence, his loss.

anyways, some good news here.. yeehaaa! we're already in the medal tally! 2 bronzes courtesy of alora and domingo..

payla can make it a silver or even a gold. he has the guts and the confidence..

bowling, oh yeah. God please give it to us. i hate to see our delegates in this discipline empty-handed in the end. men's team- 3rd as of the first block staging. women's team- 5th after the first block. actually, it was on top on the first games but didn't get the momentum to retain its place. and tee, an atenean? wow, cool. he's fifth on the all-events. some more pins to tumble down and he goes home with a medal. let's pray for him and the whole philippine team.

The thing about Roberto Cruz is that in his last SEA games, he didn't even win a gold medal. However, in his prime in the 90s, he was silver medalist in the world champions. So, I do think age played a bit of a factor.

Payla actually reminds of Harry Tanamor a little bit. Both extremely talented with a lot of heart. I see great things from him...

And yes, Tee is an Atenean. I think he's a senior now (or did he just graduate?). BS Mgt. The Guidon had a spread on him when he won a gold in the SEA games.

about the medals, i really hope the remaining athletes put well on their battles to at least improve the country's performance from the previous staging of asian games. i believe the team of 2002 was superior compared to this one we have now.

we don't have a basketball delegation. i really anticipated the participation of team phil since the 2002 semifinal upset..

harry tanamor, a silver medallist of the busan edition was thrown out of our team of pugs.

buenavista will be running in the marathon and not in the 10000 m run which was his major zone.

the more famed cue artists set aside their asian games stint to participate in well-prized tournaments.

some disagreement occurred within our NSA in chess, so the country was not fielded with the best chessers.

i'm also sad to learn that our water polo team withdrew days before the event had commenced.

swimming has a raw line-up of tankers with the exception of molina.

but i really pray we could make some surprises and get more medals.

luckily, medals are now starting to pour in for the philippine team.. a silver has been contributed to the medal output by toni rivero.. though our standing was still by far short of loooads of medals to prop up an okay games performance.. good luck, as always..

day 10 is a GOOD DAY for team phil.. i wish it's gonna be better on the 11th ,12th..15th.



well, i'm going to buy that when he gets some more age.



he's a veteran, seasoned.. sayang si harry. tsktsk.



actually, i haven't heard of him until i started to follow the track of this asiad. well, i bet he's very good. he's the only one from our men's team who gets a ticket for the masters..

still a lackluster day.

3 golds (and counting?).. we have 17 medals all in all which put us in 17th place. nice.

games already coming to its end days..

some facts here..
(did you know? )

iris ranola, one of our women's pool representative, was a graduate of Ateneo de Zamboanga.
she was unable to bring home a medal after the heartbreaking 7-6 loss to her japanese opponent in the bronze medal match of the 9-ball event.

czarina arevallo was also there for tennis. she was able to advance in the next rounds but was stopped in the round of 8 in the singles and in the the round of 16 in the doubles with denise dy. tough draws i guess..

ernesto mendoza, a jin, is also an atenean from somewhere down south (cagayan de oro).. he was unlucky in his asian games expedition. lost in his very first match thus out of the contention quite too early. he's still young at 18 though. so a lot more room for improvement.

closing ceremonies tonight..

philippines on 18th position with 19 medals comprised of 4 golds, 6 silvers and 9 bronzes.
not that remarkable, but still commendable.

as expected, china led the board, followed by korea, japan, kazakhstan and thailand.

host qatar is 9th with its 9 golds..

i was surprised to learn that our performance in this edition of the asiad is deemed as the best in 44 years. if it really is, then i'm commending our sports organizations for pushing some improvement in their programs. though, don't get mad please, kulang pa rin to say that we're on the pace with our asian neighbors, especially if we're going to consider our domination in the sports field decades ago. i feel that it wasn't the greatest our delegation could bring home and i know our athletes could have done better than that.