‘Underdog’ Javier hopes to slay Beijing’s ghost

LONDON—Archer Mark Javier came into the 30th London Olympics with only one target: Make it past the first round and let fate take him wherever it fancies him to be.

He hopes to slay the ghost of Beijing 2008 where he crashed out of the initial knockout stage after leading his Taiwanese foe with only five arrows left.

But after Friday’s classification round of the men’s 70-meter Fita competition, the urgency of  Javier’s task seems to have multiplied.

His classification score of 649 left him 55th in a field of 64 archers. He drew the 10th seeded American Ellison Brady, who shot 674, in Wednesday’s KO duel set at 3:15 p.m. (10:15 p.m. in Manila).

“I don’t mind being the underdog,” said Javier, the pride of Dumaguete City. “I will go there, play my game and see what happens.”

Javier and the 23-year-old Brady, the former world No. 3 and reigning Pan American Games champion, play matches out of five sets of three arrows in the Olympic Round of 64 at Lord’s Cricket Grounds, the century-old home of the British sport of cricket.

The winner of each set gets 2 set points. If the set is tied, each protagonist gets 1 set point.

“It’s a new Olympic format and gives everyone an excellent chance of scoring an upset,”  Javier added in Filipino.

“Mark has a  chance,” said Korean coach Chung Jae-yun through an interpreter. “He only needs to focus.”