BEIJING – Mary Jane Estimar summoned her guts and raw courage as she battled back with a limp in the last round to crush Iranian amazon Dehghani Younarti Farzaneh, 2-1, to advance to the gold medal round of the 2008 Beijing Wushu Championships yesterday at the Olympic Sports Center.
Estimar lost on the judges’ card in the first round of their 52kg semifinal bout in the sanshou (combat) event but she fought back to win the second round and force a rubber match.
Estimar, hardly recovered from an ankle injury she suffered in the first round Friday, aggravated the injury and was reeling from pain when she delivered a 45 degree kick to the lateral section of her opponent’s body in the second round.
The kick hit the ankle of the Iranian and she was visibly in pain, her balance favoring her left leg as she engaged her rival in an exchange of kicks and punches.
“I wanted to make up for the points I lost in the first round, so I went for broke in the second round,” said Estimar as she gave it everything she got to level the count in the second round.
“My leg was hurt last night. It did affect my performance today. Even if I didn’t have an injured leg, I was not sure I could defeat my rival in the first two rounds. It just depended on how the bout played out,” she said.
She earned the unanimous nod of all the judges in the face-off after she pinned her opponent to the mat and later threw her off the platform.
She received a big cheer from the crowd after the match as First Gentleman Mike Arroyo went down from the VIP stands to hug her.
Philippine medical director Dr. Alex Pineda said the injury was only minor as he gave her clearance to compete against Chinese Qin Lizi in today’s final bout for the gold medal.
“She has an ankle inverse sprain which is mild to moderate. We applied cold compress and gave her pain reliever and anti-inflammatory tablets,” said Pineda.
“We will monitor her condition every two hours and determine whether she’s fit to fight or not,” he added.
The victory made up for the loss of Benjie Rivera to Nazzir Shandujlaev of Russia in the semfinal of the 56 kg class, and the other semifinal loss of Mariane Mariano to Kiarmi Vardanjani Zahra of Iran in the 60 kg category.
Rivera and Mariano settled for the bronze.