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KENNEVIC
and Kennie Asuncion will not be competing in the 2008
Beijing Olympics.
The
Filipino pair failed to make it to the 16-pair main draw
after the Badminton World Federation (BWF) announced the
official entries in the mixed-doubles event for the
Olympics recently.
The
Asuncion siblings are No. 25 in the world rankings.
 They
failed to duplicate Amparo “Weena” Lim’s feat of making
it to the Olympics in the 1996 Atlanta edition.
Heading
the list of qualifiers are World No. 1 Nova Widianto and
Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia, No. 2 Bo Zheng and Ling
Gao of China, No. 3 Flandy Limpele and Vita Marissa of
Indonesia, and No. 4 Yu Yang and He Hanbin.
Interestingly, pairs ranked lower than the
Asuncion
siblings made it to the Olympics because each continent
is required to have a representative.
Craig
Cooper and Renee Flavell of New Zealand, ranked No. 31,
will represent the Oceania, while No. 75 Georgie Cupidon
and Juliette Ah-Wan of Seychelles will represent Africa.
There
are also eight Asians, five Europeans and one
Pan-American in the Olympics.
Tindugan
joins worlds in
France
ABBIGAIL
Tindugan will head to
Boe,
France,
to compete in the Meteksan Archery World Cup from June
23 to 29.
Tindugan,
a member of the gold medal-winning women’s compound team
in the 2007 Southeast Asian Games, topped the qualifying
events and was the only archer to surpass the criteria
set by the National Archery Association of the
Philippines (Naap) at the PhilSports field from May 13
to 15. She scored 1,351 in four events in the compound,
surpassing the 1,340 criteria. She also scored a 670 in
the doubles 70-meter event to tie the criteria.
The
World Cup in
France
is the final Olympic qualifying event but,
unfortunately, for Tindugan, the compound event is not
calendared in the Olympics.
Tindugan
teamed up with Amaya Paz, Jennifer Chan and Joan
Tabaniag to bag the gold in the women’s team event in
the Thailand SEA Games.
Dr.
Leonora Fe Brawner, president of Naap, said Tindugan
will be joined by Beijing-bound Mark Javier in the
France meet as he prepares for the Olympics.
Brawner
said the trip will be funded by the Philippine Sports
Commission but she added that other Filipino archers
might join the event and will pay for their travel.
Meanwhile, Javier is in
Cairo for his build-up to the Olympic recurve event. Brawner
said Javier is doing well under the auspices of Chan,
who is the personal choice of Javier to be his coach for
the Olympics.
Javier
will also compete in the Meteksan Archery World Cup leg
in Antalya, Turkey.
Brawner
said that the World Cup will provide a peek at the
Olympics because the best-of-the-best will be competing
there. |
