INQUIRER Sports

BEIJING—Henry Dagmil made do with his first and only legal leap and tumbled out of the qualification round of the men’s long jump Saturday night at the Beijing Olympics here.

Paying for his eagerness to better that maiden attempt, the 26-year-old from South Cotabato fouled on his next two jumps in the din of the packed Bird’s Nest stadium and missed the semifinal grade that was shorter than his national record.

Dagmil settled for 7.58 meters, well off his personal best of 7.99m, and 34th overall in the 38-man, two-squad jumping formation.

The Czech Republic’s Roman Novotny managed 7.94m and made it as the 12th and last semifinalist from the qualifying round topped by Greece’s Louis Tsatoumas with a leap of 8.27m.

Cuba’s Ibrahim Camejo was second in 8.23 and Britain’s Greg Rutherford third in 8.16.

Tsatoumas, Camejo and Rutherford all jumped only once to conserve their strength for Sunday’s finals where world champion Irving Saladino of Panama, the ninth qualifier with an easy leap of 8.01, is expected to throw his weight around.

The United States-trained Dagmil was admittedly on cruise control when he took off high on his first leap and ranked 18th overall.

But the urge to take it farther than the first played havoc on his second jump and he fouled, just as he did after he powered down the runway on his third attempt.

“Yung second jump maganda sana pero nag-foul pa (The second jump would have been great but it was disallowed),” said Dagmil later. “Hindi ko na ma-control ang speed sa third, nanggigil na. Sayang (I was so overeager I failed to control my speed in the third jump).”

The country’s lone male bidder in the centerpiece Olympic sport said the experience of competing in front of 90,000 screaming spectators was too much to bear for almost everyone.

“Nanibago kami lahat (We all couldn’t get into a rhythm),” said the jumper. “Para kaming hinahatak pabalik, kaya karamihan sa mga kalaban ko bagsak ang talon (It was as if something was pulling us back, that’s why majority of the competition didn’t jump well).”

Below-par results went across the board as no one really came close to the 8.95m world record set 17 years ago by American Mike Powell in Tokyo.

Dagmil’s 7.58m effort was his worst in recent years and betrayed a serious training flaw in which the method of one of his two Filipino coaches, he said, wouldn’t jibe with the regimen laid down by his crack US coach, Chris Huffins of California State U.

“Walang sisihan (I’m not blaming anybody),” said Dagmil, still one of Asia’s top jumpers. “Sa mga kalaban, rhythm na lahat, pero sa akin speed pa rin ang focus (The other jumpers already concentrate on rhythm, but I continue to focus on speed).”

Joseph Sy, Dagmil’s coach here, said the pressure of making a longer third jump proved too much for his ward in the shortened three-jump rotation.

All Asians, except Saudi Arabia’s Hussain Taher A Al Saba who wound up 8th with a best of 8.04m, crashed out of the qualifying round.

Al Saba’s compatriot Mohammed Salman Al Khuwaildi, the Asian record holder with a personal best of 8.48m, managed 7.93 while China’s Li Runrun posted 7.70.

Apart from Tsatoumas, Camejo, Rutherford, Al Saba Novotny and Saladino, the other qualifiers were Zimbabwe’s Ngonidzashe (8.14), Cuba’s Wilfredo Martinez (8.07), Senegal’s Ndiss Kaba Badji (8.07), South Africa’s Khotso Mokoena (8.14), Spain’s Luis Felipe Meliz (7.95) and Botswana’s Gable Garenamotse (7.95).

World Championship runner-up Andrew Howe of Ireland failed to make the grade with 7.81.