Shooter fires off Phl bid

LONDON – Shooter Brian Rosario hopes to come out strong in his Olympic debut as he vies in the skeet competition at the Royal Artillery Barracks today even as swimmer Jessie Lacuna became the first Filipino to exit from the Olympic Games at the Aquatic Sports Center in East London last night.

Rosario first aims at 75 clay targets and then closes out the eliminations by gunning 50 more tomorrow, eager to finish among the top six in a field of 36 to advance in the finals, also tomorrow.

The field will move around eight stations with at least two clay targets in each stop and an interval of anywhere between zero to three seconds will gap the release of the targets, which are made of pitch and chalk. There will be three rounds of 25 targets apiece for today and two more rounds of 25 tomorrow. In each station, one target will be high and the other, low. To make 25 targets in eight stations, there will be stops with three clay “pigeons.”

Meanwhile, archer Mark Javier also vows to rebound from a mediocre showing in the ranking phase as he faces off with American Brady Ellison in a knockout at the Lord’s Cricket Ground here this Wednesday.

Javier hit seven bull’s eyes but scored just 649 points out of 720 to rank No. 55 for a clash with the fancied Ellison, who made 676 points with 16 bull’s eyes for No. 10.

“That was not my best. But at least, I can come back. It’s not over yet. I scored my average but the others went way over theirs, showing the quality of the competition,” said Javier, who remained unfazed by Ellison, a five-time World Cup champion.

Like Javier, counterpart Rachelle Anne Cabral-de la Cruz also struggled in her own side of the event, finishing in 48th place with a total of 653 points and seven bull’s eyes. She meets Russia’s No. 17 Inna Stepanova in the first round of the knockout pairings, also tomorrow.

Lacuna finished sixth in his heat and 36th among 40 starters and became the first Filipino to bow out of the Games.

Lacuna, a product of the Palarong Pambansa, clocked one minute, 52.91 seconds in the 200m freestyle, a fraction of a second slower than his mark of 1:52.23, in the second of eight heats where 40 participated.

Only seven competed in the second, three in the first heat and seven in the third where swimmers submitted times of 1:48.14 or slower.

Swimmers in the last three heats, allotted to competitors which passed the Bracket A or OQT (Olympic Qualifying Test) and Bracket or OST (Olympic Selection Test) of the International Swimming Federation (FINA) had clockings of 1:46.61 or faster.

Sun Yang of China showed China’s emerging might in the sport originally the domain of the US (Michael Phelps) and Australia (Ian Thorp) with a clocking of 1:46.24.

This put him at the middle lanes in the semifinals with new 400m individual medley relay gold medalist Ryan Lochte (USA) and Agnel Yannick of France (1:46.60).

With the new ruling banning the use of ultra-fast swim suits that brought about a record number of Olympic records broken in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the mark of Yang paled in comparison to the 2008 Olympic mark of 1:42.96 by Phelps, the eventual eight-gold medal winner.

As a consolation, Lacuna swam faster than another Southeast Asian entry, Brunei’s Chee Weri Lim Andersen (2:02.26).

Lacuna clocked 26.03 seconds in the first 50 meters, slowed down to 27.79 seconds in the next 50 meters, 28.85 seconds in the next 50 meters and 30.24 seconds in the final 50m.

The 16-man semifinals were to be played at 7 last night with the eight-man finals set this evening.

Lacuna and Hawaii-based Jasmine Alkhaldi were trained by the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association.

Alkhaldi swims in the heats of the 100m freestyle on Aug. 1. If she makes the 16-woman field, she swims again at 7:40 p.m. The finals are held Aug. 2 in the evening.