BEIJING—Taekwondo hope Tshomlee Go takes the country’s first of two solid cracks at an Olympic medal Wednesday morning when he clashes with Australia’s Ryan Carneli in the -58 kg class at the Beijing Games here.

Go will step onto the aquamarine mat at the University of Science and Technology-Beijing Gymnasium with a psychological edge over the fighter from Down Under, having pipped him, 5-4, on the way to a bronze medal in last year’s world Olympic qualifying meet in Manchester, England.

A repeat win over Carneli will earn Go a round-of-eight encounter an hour later with the winner between Thailand’s Chutchawal Khawlaor and Benin’s M.A. Jean Moloise Ogoudjobi. The Filipino also beat both Chutchawal and Ogoudjobi in Manchester.

Matches in all taekwondo weight classes, including those in the medal rounds, are fought in one day.

“Tshomlee has all the confidence to fight the Australian,” said national coach Rocky Samson, who is being assisted here by South Korean taskmaster Kim Hong-sik.

“Mas mataas ang kundisyon niya ngayon (His conditioning is a lot better now) compared to Manchester. If he was only 70 percent fit to fight then, now he’s 100 percent.”

The notoriously overweight Go needed just an hour and a half of practice Tuesday morning to shed three pounds and meet the weight limit.

“Kailangan palaging active at pawisan si Tshomlee (Tshomlee needs to perspire a lot in practice) to maintain his fighting weight,” said Samson, adding he liked his fighter’s side of the draw.

The battler from Bicol and Binondo avoided three fighters the RP team fears most—defending Olympic champion Chu Mu-yen of Chinese Taipei, Manchester runner-up Levent Tumcat of Germany and Juan Antonio Ramos, the Spaniard who bested the Filipino in the repechage stages of the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The 27-year-old Go needs three consecutive wins to reach the finals and assure himself of at least a silver medal. Under taekwondo’s complicated rules, any fighter who loses to an eventual finalist still gets a chance to vie for the bronze in the repechage stages.

Marie Antoinette Rivero, the only other Filipino taekwondo bet, plunges into action Friday in the -67 kg women’s class against Croatia’s Sandra Saric, the same fighter who bested her in the sudden-death round of their encounter in Manchester to clinch the third and final Olympic slot.

Rivero sealed her Beijing berth a few months later at the Asian qualifiers in Vietnam.

“Tshomlee and Toni know the load they are carrying for the country,” national taekwondo chief Robert Aventajado said when the pair checked into the RP quarters at the Athletes’ Village Friday last week. “I am sure they will rise to the occasion.”

Aventajado, who arrived here Tuesday with the parents of the two fighters, said the defeat of Harry Tañamor in Wednesday’s preliminary bouts of boxing’s light flyweight class did not affect Go and Rivero’s focus.