Tuesday, August 19, 2008 RP jins set to battle familiar foes
MANILA—It’s not going to be tough than expected when Tshomlee Go faces Australian Ryan Carneli tomorrow at the start of the taekwondo competition of the 29th Olympic Games at the Beijing University of Science and Technology Gym.
Go and Mari Antoinette Rivero seem to have a lighter opponent respectively in their opening assignments after the drawing of lots yesterday at the USTB gym.
The two Filipino taek-wondo jins both liked what they’ve read,”according to coach Rocky Samson.
They were not affected (by the results of the draw). Tiningnan lang at binasa tapos binalik sa akin na nakatawa (They just read it, returned it and laughed),” Samson said.
They (Rivero and Go) are confident. They know they’re prepared. They know they’ve spent a lot of time preparing for this Olympics,’’ stressed Samson, who attended the draw yesterday morning along with Korean mentor Kim Hung Sik .
It will be Go, who will see action first shortly before noon tomorrow, while Rivero will then take her turn on Thursday against Croatia’s Sandra Saric at 10 a.m.
“I like the results. It’s a good one, a very good one,’’ said Samson, referring to Go’s draw that had the Filipino meeting the Australian, and then either the Thailand or the Benin fighters assuming he wins his round of 16 match tomorrow.
Samson also said that even Rivero’s fight schedule is not scary.
Brave girl
It’s not bad even if she’s most likely meeting the Korean (two-time world champion Hwang Kyung-seon) in the next round if they both make it past their opening bouts,’’ said Samson, a former national player who’s been handling the two Filipino jins for more than three years now. “You know Toni (Antoinette) Matapang na bata (Very brave girl).’’
He said that Rivero does not show any signs of wariness in the coming fight.
“She just rests. She (Toni) just reads a book when not working out,’’ Samson pointed out of the lady who fell one win short of winning a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympiad.
Carneli, who is an engineering student from Melbourne, Australia, is no stranger to Go because they’ve met in the quarterfinal round of the Manchester( England) qualifying tournament last year, which Go won via a close 5-4 decision.
The win enabled Go to reach the semifinals and gained automatic slot for the 29th Olympiad.
No problem. The very minimal pain he suffered during a light workout yesterday is gone now. His weight is also okay,’’ said Samson.
Go should be tipping the scale at around 55 kilos during the weigh-in tomorrow, which is well within the 58-kg. limit, Samson said.
Even Rivero and Saric have known each other. They fought in the same Manchester tournament, with the Croatian beating the Filipina in a playoff for the bronze medal that prevented her from gaining an outright Olympic slot.
Ready this time
The 24-year-old Saric is a Roman Catholic and a native of Zagreb, Croatia, who wears a pair of lucky socks and carries a picture of a Saint everywhere she goes and every time she competes.
She played in the Athens Olympics without success, but showed her readiness this time by winning the European championship in Rome while campaigning as a middleweight.
The 5-foot-9 Saric has also competed in three world cham-pionships as a welterweight, the last in 2007 in Beijing, China where she won the bronze medal.
After the early exit of lone boxer Harry Tanamor, the tough task of saving the Philippines from going home without a medal for the third straight Olympics now falls on Rivero and Go.
They are two of four remnants of what started as a 15-member Team Philippines, the third one is Maristella Torres, the country’s mandatory female athlete in the women’s long jump will see action this morning, while the fourth is male diver Ryan Rexel Fabriga.
Meanwhile, coming today to cheer and boost the morale of Toni and Go are First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, their parents and some other relatives and Philippine Olympic Committee Chairman and taekwondo president Robert Aventa-jado. (Frank Calapre)
