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Ang bows out dead last in shoot-off |
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Written by Staff
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Monday, 11 August 2008 03:29 |
Admittedly overwhelmed by top-notch competition, shotgun marksman Eric Ang wound up dead last in the tough trap qualification stage Sunday and became the first Filipino to bow out of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad here.
The 37-year-old Olympic first-timer shot dismal strings of 21 and 20 on the second day of the event for a total of 106, missing the sixth and final shoot-off berth by 13 birds.
Altogether, he went off target 19 times in the 125-bird preliminary stage.
Completely unable to climb out of the hole he dug for himself with a first-string 19 birds Saturday, the LPG distributor from Laoag City shared the basement in the 35-shooter field with Spain’s Alberto Fernandez and Bolivia’s Cesar David Menacho-Flores.
On the same day archer Mark Javier settled for 36th spot in the ranking round of the men’s FITA 70-meter event, Ang followed that tragic 19 with 24 and 22 and ranked next to last after the first three strings.
Javier and Ang were the only Filipinos from a lean squad of 15 to see action so far in the 20-day, 205-nation Olympics.
Javier, the Asian Championships gold medalist, resumes his quest on Wednesday when he battles Chinese Taipei’s Kuo Cheng-wei in one of 32 knockout matches at the Beijing Green Archery Field west of this smog-choked city.
The 5-foot-5 Silliman University alumnus needs five wins in the head-to-head matches to assure himself of the bronze medal.
Inexperience told heavily on Ang at the soggy, mist-shrouded Beijing Shooting Range north of the city as he groped for the form that gave him an impressive seventh-place finish at the World Cup in Suhl, Germany, early this year.
After letting go four clays in the fourth string, he completely wilted at the last, missing the fifth, ninth, 19th, 20th and 24th birds in the rain.
“My score is a disaster in these Games,” said the soft-spoken Ang in Filipino. “I could have done better but I lack experience competing against the veterans, some of whom are in their fourth or fifth Olympics.”
Four-time Olympian David Kostelecky of the Czech Republic shot a perfect 25 in the six-man shoot-off to clinch the gold medal with 146, three up on Italian world record-holder Giovanni Pellielo who bagged the silver with 23-143.
Defending Olympic champion Alexey Alipov of Russia settled for the bronze this time with 21-142.
The other finalists were reigning world champion Michael Diamond of Australia (142), Croatia’s Josip Glasnovic (140) and Italy’s Erminio Frasca (140).
Ranked according to the last string, the Filipino came in last, seven rungs below the only other Southeast Asian in the six-squad field, Singaporean Lee Wung Yew who managed 110.
Ang turned in a performance that even failed to beat the gold-winning effort of 107 at the Thailand SEA Games last December.
“He didn’t feel at home yet in the Olympics,” Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, president of the Philippine Olympic Committee, said of the country’s lone shooting entry. “But what’s good is he doesn’t act like a loser.”
“The Olympics is very different, even (Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA star) Kobe Bryant and the Williams sisters (Venus and Serena) said so here,” Cojuangco added.
Ang said his inauspicious Olympics debut will spur him on to seek early pre-qualification for the 2012 Summer Games In London.
“I will have to start preparations early, like two to three years before the next Olympics,” he said.
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