Fernando qualifies but finishes last in first round

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Pride of the country: Indonesian weight lifters Eko Yuli Irawan (right) and Triyatno show off their bronze and silver medals from the 2012 London Olympic Games after arriving at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Banten, on Saturday.(JP/Jerry Adiguna)

The 22-year-old finished with a time of 10.80 seconds — still below his best of 10.55 seconds — to take second place behind Jurgen Themen of Suriname in the preliminary round at the Olympic Stadium in London on Saturday morning.

However, he languished in last place among eight runners in Heat 2, notching up a time of 10.90 seconds. Heat 2 saw Justin Gatlin, Derrick Atkins and Rondel Sorrillo through to the semifinals.

The Indonesian competing in track and field is Triyaningsih. She will compete in the women’s marathon scheduled on Sunday.

Fernando was quoted by Antara news agency as saying that he felt chills with the temperature recorded at 16 degrees Celsius. Trainer Henny Maspaitella told him to stretch as often as possible to shake off the chills.

According to the competition website, the 100-meter competition starts with a preliminary round, which is limited to those athletes who have not as yet achieved the qualifying standards. The qualification procedure from this round is determined by the final number  of entrants.

The competition then continues with heats. The number of heats and the number of athletes progressing to the next round depends on the number of athletes competing. In each heat the fastest athletes go through, as well as a set number of the fastest competitors across all heats. The following rounds run on the same format, until eight athletes are through to compete in the final.

Indonesia, which deploys a total of 22 athletes in 8 sports, has failed to improve its medal collection from the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

With Triyaningsih offering little medal hope, Indonesia is most likely to end its London campaign with a silver and bronze medal compared to 1-1-3 in Beijing.

The medals for Indonesia were produced in weight lifting thanks to silver medalist Triyatno and bronze winner Eko Yuli Irawan.

Indonesian shuttlers are returning home empty handed after Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir failed in their contest for bronze on Friday. The poor run ended the country’s shuttlers’ streak of winning at least one gold medal in every Olympics since Barcelona 1992.