Meet Team PH’S Magnificent 11

Ag them as the Magnificent 11 or the Lucky Eleven, whatever. This intrepid group of athletes would go by any name in its audacious bid to compete against the best in mankind’s grandest, biggest sporting spectacle.

TIn the next fortnight after tomorrow, the first of 11 Filipino athletes plunges into action in the quadrennial Games of the 2012 Summer Olympics, in London’s peculiarly nippy summer.

No one knows exactly what to expect of this latest batch of Filipino Olympians—survivors of uncompromising Olympic qualification grinds, mandatory country entries, or fortunate wild-card picks.

We don’t even know exactly if any one of them stands a chance of landing a medal against such a humongous collection of world-class sports marvels.

All we know is they are in the Olympics for a reason and that is to surpass themselves and make their compatriots proud. A medal of any color will be bonus to a nation that lags behind its neighbours in sporting achievements of late.

“Faster, higher, stronger (citius, altius, fortius in Latin),” the eternal Olympic motto coined by the founder of the Modern Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, still resonates more powerfully than ever.

This will be the yardsticks by which the performances of these lucky few—Alkhaldi, Barriga, Cabral, Caluag, Diaz, Herrera, Hoshina, Javier, Lacuna, Rosario, Torres—will be measured by the Filipino people when the Games end on Aug. 12 in the English capital’s swank Olympic Stadium. And, of course, after they have fought with their

heads held high.

(5,000-meter

Athletics run) THE five-time Southeast Asian Games men's 3,000-meter steeplechase champion will compete in the men's 5000 meters where he holds a personal best of 14:51.40.

The 33-year-old Herrera will compete on Aug. 8.

ROUTE TO OLYMPICS

Mandatory country entry World record: Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia) 12:37.35 Fany Blankers-Koen Games 2004, Hengelo, Netherlands