Diving flop ends RP stint in Beijing

BEIJING – Diver Ryan Rexel Fabriga missed the medal round in the 10-meter platform event and made the final bow for Team Philippines in the XXIX Beijing Olympic Games.

Fabriga, the 2007 Southeast Asian Games gold medalist, was 30th and last after two of the six compulsory dives led, surprisingly, by Russian Gleb Galperin and Thomas Finchum of the US.

The loss concluded the 13-day campaign of the 15-member Philippine contingent which ended its participation the way it started – eliminated right in the first round.

The competitions in wushu will end today, but whatever results they will bring to the team of wushu president Julian Camacho will not be included in the Olympic medal tally.

The competition, a special event of the Olympics, is also not included in the official bulletin of the Olympics as it is a sport being promoted by wushu officials lobbying for its inclusion in future Olympics.

Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco will make an official assessment of the Philippine participation today.

Chef de mission Monico Puentevella will call all heads of sports represented here for a meeting Sept. 4 in Subic to make the official assessment he will report to President Arroyo.

Philippine Sports Commission had called for “radical, revolutionary” measures that called, among others, for the resignation of non-performing, overstaying sports leaders, a radical shift in training strategies, focus on self-sufficiency among NSAs, and the establishment of the Philippine Sports Institute, which he called the “prescription” for the ills of Philippine sports.

Nine of the athletes and their association officials have left for Manila while the six other athletes and the skeleton crew of the RP contingent, including the medical staff of the POC and PSC, will be waiting for the closing ceremonies on Aug. 24.

For the first time in recent memory, the Philippines never advanced past the first round in the multi-stage competitions.

The first round losers were Mark Javier in archery, Eric Ang in shooting, Marestella Torres and Henry Dagmil in the long jump in athletics, taekwondo jins Thsomlee Go and Toni Rivero, boxer Harry Tañamor and swimmers Miguel Molina, Ryan Arabejo, James Walsh, Daniel Coakley and Chrstel Simms in the heats of swimming, and diver Sheil Mae Perez.

None of them ever went close enough to seizing a spot in the next round.

Tañamor, Go and Rivero emerged as the country’s best candidate for at least a bronze medal in its bid to end the medal drought of the Philippines since the 2000 Sydney Games.

Tañamor provided the first blow to the country’s campaign when he lost in the first round of the light flyweight (-48kg) to African champion Manyo Plange.

That put the pressure on Go who had what his coaches said was the luck of the draw but he took a heart-rending 1-0 loss to Australian Ryan Carneli in the first round of the flyweight (-58kg) division in taekwondo.

That put the extra pressure on Rivero, who lacked the luster that carried her to the semifinal round on her debut in the Athens Olympics as she also yielded to old rival Sandra Saric of Croatia in the welterweight (-67kg) of the women’s division.

The only big accomplishments of Team Philippines were the national marks registered by weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, Javier, Molina, Walsh, Coakley and Simms.

But all these were buried in the grave of Olympic history as the greatest athletes of the decade reset new Olympic and world marks in the fastest, strongest competitions the Games had ever seen.