Tokyo—The Philippines handed out a sound beating in the boxing front, but absorbed several in taekwondo and gymnastics as the Summer Olympic Games went full blast on Saturday.

Former world champion boxer Nesthy Petecio fashioned out a dominant 5-0 mauling of Congo’s Marcelat Sakobi Matshu to easily advance to the Round of 16 in the women’s featherweight division of the boxing competitions at the Kokugikan Arena.Gymnast Carlos Yulo will also advance to finals of the vault exercise but failed to make the cut in five other events, including his favorite floor exercises, rings, parallel bars, horizontal bar and pommel horse at the Ariake Gymnastics Center with routines filled with poor landings and missteps.

Yulo placed sixth in vault with a tally of 14.712. Only the top eight athletes in each apparatus will advance to the finals.For All-Around, the 21-year-old gymnast finished 47th with 79.931, also missing the cut as only the top 24 gymnasts will qualify for the final.

Thirty-five kilometers away from Tokyo at the Makuhari Messe Hall in Chiba City, Filipino taekwondo jin Kurt Barbosa was handed a brutal 26-6 beating in the men’s -58kg elimination round by world no. 1 Jang Jun of South Korea. The defeat was so lopsided that the referee stopped the fight via Point Gap even before the third round was finished.Barbosa still had a chance to advance up to the bronze medal fight via repechage if Jang would advance to the championship round, but the Korean later suffered an upset loss to Tunisia’s Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi, 25-19.Jang’s stunning defeat officially made Barbosa as the first casualty of the 19-strong Philippine delegation in the Olympiad.“(This is) God’s plan, thank you Lord,” Tweeted the 21-year-old Barbosa after the loss.In contrast, Petecio is very much alive in the competition.After a shaky first round, Petecio went to work starting, using her lateral movements to create clear angles, where she landed her power blows.The game-plan continued in the third, including heavy combinations midway, mixed by a defensive effort in the end to seal the win (30-27, 30-27, 29-28, 30-27, 30-27).

The breezy victory, however, was just the calm before the storm as she takes on a tornado of a foe in the Final 16 in Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-Ting of Chinese Taipei, a former world champion and the top seed in the 54 to 57-kg division here.Game time is on Monday, July 26 at 12:39 p.m., Philippine time.The 29-year-old Davao del Sur native Petecio is coming off an extensive training camp in Thailand with fellow boxing Olympians Irish Magno and Carlo Paalam.Meanwhile, world’s no. 25 Magno takes on 17th-ranked Christine Ongare of Kenya in the preliminary round of the women’s flyweight division on Sunday.Ongare was the first female Kenyan boxer to win a Commonwealth Games medal in the sport, when she claimed bronze in the flyweight category at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.The Philippine boxing team’s coaching staff took time to scout the Kenyan boxer in an effort to find cracks in her armor.“We analyzed her opponent last night and the tactic [Irish] needs to use is sort of going in and out of punching range,” said boxing coach Don Abnett. “The Kenyan girl loves to scrap. [Irish] just has to open the space, let her miss and then counter with what we call bread and butter shots, strikes to the head and body.”

On Monday, flyweight no. 25 Carlo Paalam battles 25-year-old Irishman Brendan Irvine, ranked no. 32.Eumir Marcial, by virtue of his being seeded no. 3 here, drew a bye.Needing only two wins to clinch a bronze medal and four to secure gold, the middleweight Marcial will fight the winner of the bout between Algeria’s Younes Nemouchi and Ugandan Kavuma David Ssemujju.After a shaky first round, Petecio went to work starting, using her lateral movements to create clear angles, where she landed her power blows.The game-plan continued in the third, including heavy combinations midway, mixed by a defensive effort in the end to seal the win (30-27, 30-27, 29-28, 30-27, 30-27).The breezy victory, however, was just the calm before the storm as she takes on a tornado of a foe in the Final 16 in Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-Ting of Chinese Taipei, a former world champion and the top seed in the 54 to 57-kg division here.Game time is on Monday, July 26 at 12:39 p.m., Philippine time.The 25-year-old Lin was the women’s bantamweight champion in the 2018 World Championships in New Delhi, India.A year later, Lin climbed to the heavier featherweight division and immediately made an impact with a third-place finish in the 2019 World Championships in Ulan-Ude, Russia, where Petecio was the champion in the same division.The Taiwanese, however, was the featherweight titlist in the same year in the Asian Championships, where Petecio only finished ninth.The 29-year-old Davao del Sur native Petecio is coming off an extensive training camp in Thailand with fellow boxing Olympians Irish Magno and Carlo Paalam.Meanwhile, world’s no. 25 Magno takes on 17th-ranked Christine Ongare of Kenya in the preliminary round of the women’s flyweight division on Sunday.Ongare was the first female Kenyan boxer to win a Commonwealth Games medal in the sport, when she claimed bronze in the flyweight category at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.The Philippine boxing team’s coaching staff took time to scout the Kenyan boxer in an effort to find cracks in her armor.“We analyzed her opponent last night and the tactic [Irish] needs to use is sort of going in and out of punching range,” said boxing coach Don Abnett. “The Kenyan girl loves to scrap. [Irish] just has to open the space, let her miss and then counter with what we call bread and butter shots, strikes to the head and body.”On Monday, flyweight no. 25 Carlo Paalam battles 25-year-old Irishman Brendan Irvine, ranked no. 32.Eumir Marcial, by virtue of his being seeded no. 3 here, drew a bye.Needing only two wins to clinch a bronze medal and four to secure gold, the middleweight Marcial will fight the winner of the bout between Algeria’s Younes Nemouchi and Ugandan Kavuma David Ssemujju.

posted July 25, 2021 at 12:50 am by Riera U. Mallari