GUANGZHOU—Nearly one hundred Filipino athletes and team officials enter the imposing Hai Xin Sha stadium here on Friday along with counterparts from 44 other nations. The Olympic Council of Asia gathers the continent’s finest in the world of sports to articulate its contributions to the growth of the revered international Olympic movement.

At the forefront of the Philippine delegation, which will march 29th in the order of the OCA protocol, is flag-bearer Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski, whose storybook triumph as an 11th-hour entry in show jumping of equestrian at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan boosted the nation’s spirit at a time when hearts were torn after the loss in the Filipino passion that is basketball.

“We were moved by her message in the send-off First Friday mass for the Asian Games. She provided us with so much inspiration," noted athletes from different disciplines.

Cojuangco-Jaworski arrived Thursday along with athletes from billiards, swimming and taekwondo, as well as her father, the president of the Philippine Olympic Committee, Jose Cojuangco Jr. He will join dignitaries, members of royal families and heads of states at the grandstand of the “Island in the middle of the Sea," the popular English translation for Hai Xin Sha.

In an hour-and-a-half-long pre-parade show, China will display poetry in motion with songs that speak of the purity in children’s hearts and dance numbers that personify Hongmian, a flower well-loved by the fishermen who gave rise to the city nestled by the Pearl River.

Pearl’s wharf will host 45 boats that will represent all the member countries, for the Hai Xin Sha gallery to marvel at. while a fireworks show commences from around the stadium and the grandiose Hai Xin television tower, now a tourist attraction because of its height and colors.

Just before the torch arrives for the lighting of the Games cauldron symbolizing the ongoing games, acrobatic shows, a puppet show, and a melodrama depicting the former life of Guangzhou will be unveiled before hundreds of thousands expected to attend the quadrennial sports event.

People’s Republic of China President Hu Jintao will then declare the Games open, and OCA President Sheikh Ahamad Al Fahad Al-Sabah deliver his remarks.

Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee Chairman Liu Peng, the country’s Minister of the General Administration of Sports, will be the first to rise to welcome the athletes and delegates soon after China’s national anthem Yi Yong Jun Jin Xing Qu is played.

The traditional athletes’ oath and torch relay will culminate the opening ceremony.

Source: KY, RCJ, GMANews.TV