Philippines-China mixed team nearly disqualified – late for match – end up winning Nanjing gold!

Nanjing 2014 21-26 August
Youth Olympic Games

NEWS | RESULTS 
SCOREBOARD | PHOTOS
Fri 22 Aug Ranking round
Sat 23 Aug Eliminations
Sun 24 Aug Mixed team finals

Mon 25 Aug Girls finals
Tues 26 Aug Boys finals

See full schedule

MORENO and LI won that match 5-1 then beat Eric PETERS (CAN) and Mirjam TUOKKOLA (FIN) in the semifinals – but they were just a few seconds away from being disqualified from the Nanjing mixed team competition.

“I was crying in the taxi already, being stuck there for so long,” admitted Luis. “It was awful, but I ran to the field, collected myself and then all the nerves were gone.”

In the gold medal match, the pair cruised to a 6-0 set point victory over Germany’s Cynthia FREYWALD and ZOLKEPELI from Malaysia.

LI Jiaman attributed the win to MORENO’s luck. “I wasn’t the least bit angry, because if it wasn’t for that we wouldn’t have got the gold medal,” she said. Jiaman did say, though, that if he hadn’t turned up she would have liked to shoot the match on her own.

Together, she and Luis made a good team. Individually, third seed Jiaman is in good shape in the competition, while MORENO lost in the first round two days ago – but still leaves these Youth Olympics with a gold medal.

PETERS and TUOKKOLA, who were grinning and chatting behind the athlete boxes during the mixed team matches, won bronze.

“When she needs to shoot those arrows, she shoots those arrows,” said Canadian Eric about his Finnish partner. “We kept telling each other: ‘whatever happens, we’ll be fine’.”

After heavy rain delayed competition on the field two matches earlier, they were more than fine. They only let Belgium’s MARTENS and Regina ROMERO from Guatemala pick up two set points. The fourth place finishers shot too many reds throughout the match.

After being asked what PETERS’ strengths were, Mirjam TUOKKOLA could only say “he’s good,” while laughing – and an emphatic “yes” in reply to whether she’d shoot with Eric again made him say…

“I was hoping she wouldn’t say no. That would look really bad!”

Eric, by the way, is a bit of a genius. He relaxes in between matches by playing with rubix cubes – and can solve them in under 30 seconds. (Twenty-six is his best.)

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