Despite being pinned as the country's best bet to bag a gold, Philippine ace amateur boxer Harry Tanamor has been maintaining low-key as he prepares himself for the upcoming Beijing Olympics, which is likely to be his last chance to defend the Philippine boxing glory in the quadrennial event.

"I can tell you Tanamor is training really, really hard for this. It might be his last Olympics," said Manny Lopez, president of the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines, in a recent interview.

Asked to explain Tanamor's low-key profile, lately demonstrated in a no-show at the send-off party hosted in the presidential palace, Lopez said Tanamor is not "hiding" but just learnt to separate training and publicity.

For the past few months, Tanamor trains either overseas or in the reclusive training camp in northern mountainous city of Baguio. While some of the other 14 Filipino athletes who are also qualified for the Games engaged in a series of sponsors' promotional events or grew fond of media coverage, 30-year-old Tanamor, the country's most hopeful for a medal, managed to exclude himself from the public radar.

"When in training, Tanamor should be 100 percent focus, otherwise he will not be able to take down the Chinese in Beijing," Lopez said the boxer and his coaches have unanimously picked China's Zou Shiming as Tanamor's No. 1 rival in the Games.

With stunningly fast and unique techniques dubbed as "fox boxing", Zou defeated Tanamor with a big margin in the 48kg category of the Chicago World Boxing Championship last December, defending his throne he won two years ago. Zou was also a bronze-medalist in the Athens Games.

Lopez said Tanamor and Zou altogether met five times in the past events, with Zou winning three out of five matches. "But if they meet again in Beijing, we hope that Tanamor can win and draw their matching records to balance," he said.

"It is really a 50 to 50 chance and Tanamor is working so hard to win," Lopez said, adding that shunning media and public activities is just one thing the Philippine athlete learnt from his Chinese counterpart.

Lopez said Tanamor has sparred with visiting African Olympians and local professional boxers in the past two months to make up for the loss of practice due to his absence at the Chemistry Cup held in Germany in June.

"I would say Tanamor is in very good conditions now," he said.

Tanamor will arrive at Beijing with the majority of the 37-member Philippine Olympic delegation on August. He is likely to spar with Latin American boxers before entering his first fight on August 13. Twenty-eight boxers are expected to compete in his 48 kg category. Besides Zou, European boxers are also going to pose serious challenges to Tanamor's quest of an Olympic gold.

The Philippines has not yet won an Olympic gold during its participation in the Games since 1924. The last time the Philippines got a medal was in 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

The country's 15 athletes to Beijing will compete in boxing, taekwondo, shooting, archery, diving, swimming, athletics and weight-lifting.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Friday raised the Olympic incentive to 15 million pesos (340,909 U.S. dollars) for any Filipino athlete who gets a gold medal in Beijing.

(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2008)