TOKYO — The spotlight focuses on Nesthy Petecio and Carlo Paalam in boxing and Ernest John “EJ” Obiena in pole vault as the Philippines’ Tokyo Olympic campaign gets rolling anew after a quiet day on Friday.
Petecio shoots for a gold medal berth in women’s featherweight, hoping to fan his bid to become the second Filipino gold medalist in the Games after weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, while Paalam tries to secure a guaranteed bronze medal in men’s flyweight at the Kokugikan Arena.
Boosted by Diaz’s historic feat, Petecio tries to guarantee the Philippines of a silver medal when she takes on Italy’s Testa Irma at 12:39 p.m. (Philippine time).
Already assured of a bronze here, Petecio tries to go deeper into the tournament when she fights the taller Irma, copycat of tournament topseed Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-Ting, who has already been eliminated by the Filipina featherweight.
“We have a game plan on the next fight. The Italian girl weighed 60kgs. She’s similar with the Taipei girl but she hooks and sways back. So we’re gonna take a counter act move, but I’m comfortable with Nesthy’s performance,” said the Philippine Olympic Team’s boxing coach Don Abnett of Australia.
Paalam, on the other hand, is expected to use the same game-plan of his 4-1 win over Ireland’s Brendan Irvine when he fights Algeria’s Mohamed Flissi earlier at 10:48 a.m. (Philippine time).
“Carlo’s opponent is a very experienced boy. He’s boxing in the WSB (World Series of Boxing),” said Abnett of Flissi. “But Carlo’s gonna get moving, similar to the game plan that he did in his last fight, he probably just continue with that. If it’s working, then we won’t change it.”
Obiena? He takes on a world-class field as he tries to secure one of the 12 medal-round slots at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium also on Saturday.
Even without COVID-19 infected Sam Hendricks of the United States, the field is filled with the who’s who of the sport, led by world No. 1 Armand Duplantis, No. 3 Piotr Lisek of Poland, No. 5 Christopher Nilsen of the US and no. 7 Thiago Braz of Brazil.
Obiena himself is perched at no. 6 in the world and is among the best in the sport, which is the reason why he isn’t rattled by the world-class competition.
“It’s a mental game,” said Obiena, adding Duplantis and company have become his pals but the field will be a battke ground as he tries to win for the nation its first athletics medal after a long, long while.
Juvic Pagunsan, meanwhile, fired a two-over 73 and dropped to a tie for 25th after two rounds in men’s individual play of golf at Kasumigaseki Country Club.
Failing to build on a promising start, Pagunsan was bogged down by bogeys on holes No. 5 and No. 8 plus two more at the back nine. That seven-shot turnaround dropped the Filipino to three-under-par overall as he fell 20 places down the standings.
The 43-year-old Japan Tour regular is now eight shots off the lead going into Saturday’s third round. Nievarez, one of the 18 Olympic first timers in the 19-athlete Team Philippines here, closed out his men’s single sculls bid in rowing at 23rd place at the Sea Forest Waterway.
There were 32 participants — including those rooted out from the preliminaries — in the event but for the 21-year-old Nievarez, the future looks bright. Nievarez submitted a time of seven minutes and 21.28 seconds to land fifth in the event’s Final D of the classification round.
Those numbers were faster than the 7:22.97 he registered in the preliminary round that qualified him for the quarterfinals last July 23.
Greece’s Stefanos Nyouskos was timed 6:40.45, an Olympic best time, to win the gold medal. Norway’s Kjetil Borch (6:41.66) clinched silver and Croatia’s Damir Martin (6:42.58) bagged bronze in the event where Nievarez was one of the shortest participants but the only Southeast Asian rower.”
