Special report: 2008 Olympic Games

    By Xu Lingui

    LOS BANOS, the Philippines, June 5 (Xinhua) -- With 7,000 islands spreading over the West Pacific, the Philippines might boast of the best diving sites in the world. But when it comes to the sport of diving at Olympics, it is quite a different story.

    In the past one hundred years since diving was first introduced in the 1904 St. Louis Games, only two Filipino divers made it to the Olympic springboards. And both were fast eliminated in the preliminary rounds.

    However, the Philippines says it is ready to stage a decent comeback this August in Beijing.

    One of the two Olympic qualifying divers and the most hopeful is the 22-year-old Sheila Mae Perez, a shanty-born girl who was trained into a five-time gold medalist in the recent three Southeast Asian Games.

    In this summer, she will step on the 3-meter springboard in Beijing to plunge for the Filipino pride at Olympics, the second time for Perez.

    "I was too young and too unprepared eight years ago in Sydney, but now, I am different." A confident-sounding Perez told Xinhua in an interview. "Others might say you can't get it, but yes, I am aiming a medal and I see chances."

    In a country where more than two-third of population are only glued to television when basketball games and professional boxing are on show, diving remains unpopular and barely known.

    But officials with the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association said Perez is joining boxer Harry Tanamor to become the country's "best bets" in Beijing.

    EXPERIENCE FROM CHINA

    Perez said she did not know there was a sport called diving when she went to a diving talent recruitment totally out of curiosity some 12 years ago. And then, she met Coach Zhang, who trained Perez for more than a decade and improved her skills dramatically.

    "Sheila might not have the perfect body shape for diving, but she is clever and understands the coach's instructions well. And that is a very important trait of a good athlete," said 58-year-old Zhang Dehu, who came to the Philippines in 1997 after quitting his coaching job at China diving team.

    Zhang, who trained China's first Olympic gold medal diver Gao Min in 1980s, described the diving sport in the Philippines in 1997 as "primitive" and athletes, who received zero systematic trainings, only dived for fun.

    But Zhang said he was rather grateful that the sports officials and the sponsors are serious and very responsive to his and the divers' ideas and demands.

    Today, in the bright and modern-looking aqua sports training center embraced in the tranquil mountains of Los Banos, some 50 kilometers south of Manila, the country's top divers followed Zhang 's "particularly strict" way of Chinese training four hours a day, six days a week for the Games.

    "Honestly, I am not optimistic about a medal, but anyway, if we can get into the finals, it is already a great leap from the ground zero where we stood just years ago," Zhang said.

    In a sport largely dominated by the Chinese, with strong competitors from the United States, Australia, Canada, Russia and several European countries, the Philippines in fact has to struggle for the slimmest chance, if any, to make its voice heard.

    But Zhang said he and almost all visiting Chinese coaches were impressed by the strong body average Filipino athlete has. "Their potential is enormous. We need to bring that out by good trainings," he said.

    Zhang said the team is looking forward to a 40-day training in China before the Games started on August 8 to get the divers exposed in "ruthlessly strict" training environment in China.

    "It will give our divers a good spur," he said.

    DIVE FOR A CHANGE

    Not so different from Perez, many of the Filipino divers took to diving by chance and considered training under Coach Zhang as a springboard to jump out of poverty, at least temporarily.

    Four trainees at the national team received a monthly allowance of 12,000 pesos (279 U.S. dollars) plus free accommodation and education, a decent treat in a country where one third of the population lives on less than one dollar a day.

    Six younger trainees in the development pool under Zhang received a few thousands less in allowance, which is however much more than what they got in provincial teams -- sometimes nothing at all.

    "Diving has changed a lot of things in my life, the family, the school, and all," Perez said. "I came from a single-parent family in the poor South. If it isn't for diving, I am heading nowhere."

    Zhang said his divers are all "good kids" who send most of their allowance home to support their family deep in poverty.

    And not surprisingly, the sister of Perez and the brother of the other Olympian Ryan Fabriga have joined Zhang's youth diving team.

    "I like diving and I am proud of my brother," said 14-year-old John Fabriga, who just joined his brother in Los Banos for barely one month. "But I come here also because I want to support my mother."

    But Zhang said diving is no where near a decent treat for divers at the grass-root where athletes have no access to good facilities, coaching and received, if any, minimal allowance.

    "The team here is doing good, but if you look at the grass-rootit is really worrisome," he said. "I am not sure whether the sport can attract the real talented young kids."