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| Angel Polo has a huge chance of scoring a medal in the Youth Olympic Games. POC Media Pool |
DIAMNIADIO, Senegal—Angel Polo ranked third in the preliminaries of women’s Taijishan wushu, and Jamesray Mishael Ajido qualified for the men’s 100-meter butterfly in swimming for a potential start for Team Philippines in the Dakar 4th Youth Olympic Games on Sunday.
Polo admitted committing errors with the fan and her balance midway through her routine to momentarily seize the lead with 9.223 points, but wound up third behind former world youth championships gold medalist Ng Zhe Nin of Singapore and Chu Yu En of Chinese Taipei.
A favorite in the event, Ng garnered 9.300 points with Chu matching Polo’s score in the first of two events—the Taijiquan preliminaries are set Monday with the top eight on combined scores advancing to the final on Tuesday.
“I had an error; I didn’t keep my grip on the fan properly, causing me to lose my balance a bit,” said Polo, 15, and a bronze medalist in last March’s world juniors championship in Tianjin, China.
Ajido, on the other hand, clocked 56.33 seconds, 1.32 seconds off his personal best, to salvage seventh in the list of eight qualifiers for the final set at 3 p.m. (Senegal time) also Sunday.
Egypt’s Ali Sain looked formidable at 53.96 seconds, followed by Slovakia’s Matias Kristof (54.68) and India’s Tirthank Pegu (55.15).
No other swimmer from Southeast Asia made the final, with Vietnam’s Van Hoang Quy Duong at ninth with 56.78 seconds.
