Groot is a pole vaulter from the Netherlands. Coached by George Friant and 2005 World Champion Rens Blom, Denise has been a consistent 4.00m vaulter since 2007. Groot had a sterling career in age-group competition. While still only a youth athlete, Denise won a silver medal in the Dutch National Championships in 2007, clearing a height of 3.61m. She followed this up with another silver medal, soaring over 3.90m in the European Youth Olympic Festival the same year.

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Molly Beckwith is this week’s Track Beauty!

Theisen is a world-class heptathlete, having had stints at the World Championships and the Olympic Games. As a 16-year old, she made competed at the 2005 World Youth Championships, finishing in 17th place in an event won by future World Champion Tatiana Chernova Татьяна Сергеевна Чернова. Brianne also wound up in the same ranking spot a year later at the World Junior Championships in Beijing.

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Photo from Jeric Angeles

By second half, the lead mushroomed to 30 points as the J-boys found their mark from beyond the arc. In a good show of sportsmanship, our opponents pulled out their big guns as their runaway victory (and our demise) became more apparently certain. Nevertheless, the fresh legs of AHS 4J 03′s second stringers were too much to handle.

There was to be no miracle comeback, as the team missed a substantial number of free throw attempts (40%, 4/10). For the second straight game, our three-point shooting accuracy was horrendous (16.7%, 3/18). Our taller adversaries grabbed a massive 39 rebounds against our miniscule 12. We were bested in almost every statistical category except in blocked shots (4).

The final score: 43-61. AHS 4D 03, the Roberto Littaua champions of 2009, had just sustained its worst shellacking since the 50-point blowout in 2011.

Losing is never fun. But there’s only so much a depleted squad could do. The lone bright spot in this debacle of an ABL season is the fact that the losing experience is character-building.

Game Statistics (from ABL.ph)

AHS-2003-M-2

Ouédraogo is a Belgian athlete who competes in both the sprints and the intermediate hurdles. The high point in her career came at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where she won the 4x100m silver together with Belgian sprinting great Kim Gevaert, Olivia Borleé, and Hanna Marien. The quartet stopped the clock at a new Belgian record of 42.54s. Élodie was also part of the Belgian squad tha won bronze at the Osaka World Championships.

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Last Saturday’s game was no different. We were outgunned, outclassed, and outfought. The opposing team, AHS 4A 2003, was taller and heftier and boasted several players with basketball varsity experience. Although we led by a couple of points during the first few minutes of the game, the lack of offensive cohesion and frontline heft took its toll. Our adversaries scored with reckless abandon from both the inside and the outside. The lack of adequate substitute players in our rotation made it harder for our guards to defend against 4A’s crack snipers.

By halftime, the team was neck-deep under a staggering 17-point lead.

Huffing and puffing from two quarters’ worth of exertion, I struggled to come to terms with the shellacking. The portly Velden Lim did his utmost best to infuse some order into our offense. As I sat on one of those new folding chairs to catch my breath, I noticed grim smiles painted on the faces of Adi Dimaliwat and Paolo Rosales, our most vital scoring cogs.

Paolo Rosales at the free throw line. (Photo from Lui Sugui)

Once the second half began, a vicious fightback ensued. As the opposing team rested their starters, we fought tooth and nail for every point. Hustle was the name of the game, despite our struggles in forming a cohesive offensive effort. Although we reduced the deficit to a mere 6 points in the fourth quarter, the exhausted AHS 4D 03 squad was left scoreless in the last four minutes of the game. The final buzzer sounded with the score of 37-46.

The game statistics speak volumes about our terrible game. We shot a miserable 22.2%. Only 7 out of our 22 three-point attempts found the bottom of the net, despite Paolo Rosales’ accurate 44.4% clip from behind the arc. Similarly, we had trouble making our free throws (6 out 18, 33.3%). The opposing team outrebounded us 25-38.

An inspired Andrei Blancia put in an herculean effort in the paint, grabbing a team-high 8 rebounds. Rosales scored a team-high 17 points, as JR “MVP” Calimbas churned in a game-high 4-assist performance.

Game Statistics (from ABL.ph)

AHS-2003-M-1

The Czech 400m hurdles specialist has made significant impact in her event the past two years. Coming into the 2011 season, Zuzana had a personal best of 54.13s and a fourth-place finish at the 2010 Barcelona European Championships to her credit. Towards the end of the year, the Czech had lowered her personal record by almost 1 second to 53.29s. More importantly, she gained valuable experience as she crossed the line in a competitive 7th place at the Daegu World Championships.

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The 22-year old is a top-ranked Australian elite sprinter. Breen had won national titles in both the 100m and the 200m since 2009. To date, her major championship curriculum vitae include stints at the Commonwealth Games, the World Championships, and most recently, the 2012 London Olympic Games.

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The 23-year old Ukrainian is the reigning World Junior record holder for the javelin throw. She set the U20 standard of 63.01m at the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz back in 2008.[1] Naturally, her track record as an age-group athlete was immaculate, having won World Youth and World Junior silvers and the European Junior title on top of her World Junior gold medal.

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Readership dropped considerably after London. So did my interest in athletics and writing about track & field. I still managed to eke out the weekly Track Beauty, which by then has been something short of mechanical. I struggled to find inspiration to churn out in-depth, honest-to-goodness pieces that has become the trademark of this blog. In the end, it was a futile attempt at sustaining something that is not there.

Read: “Arrivederci, Hurdles!”

The moment the Olympic magic died down, the reality that I am a retired hurdler took immediate effect. Although the steady stream of athletics articles have slowed down to a trickle, I have no intention of killing this site outright. I am still pretty much engaged in sports, in light of regular competitive basketball games, weight training, plyometrics and sprinting workouts. Even if my interest in track & field is near its historic lows, I’m quite certain that once the indoor season comes into full swing, I’ll be tuning in to Eurosport and scouring the athletics news wires yet again.

As I grow older in life, these puerile concerns become less and less pressing. Perhaps one day this site will die a natural death, but the time is not now.