MANILA, Aug. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- A senior Philippine sport official applauded its national athletes performance in the Athens Olympic games although they brought no medal back, a local newspaper reported Monday.

    The Philippine Sports Commission chairman, Eric Buhain, told Manila Times that the country "did pretty well" in the 28th Olympic Games "despite our failure to bring home a medal."

    "All the 16 Filipino athletes gave their best, but the breaks simply went against them, particularly in taekwondo," said Buhain,himself a multititled swimmer and former Olympian.

    Despite another failure in the bid for Olympic gold medal, someyoung Philippine athletes, who participated in the biggest international games for the first time, have shown remarkable performances that definitely endeared them to Filipino sports fans,Buhain said.

    On the surprising failure of the Filipino boxing athletes in the second round, Buhain said there's still a chance for them to improve "if they can solve their problems."

    "We saw that we have strong medal potentials in individual sports like archery, taekwondo and boxing. Let's focus on them inpreparation for the Southeast Asian Games in Manila next year," hesaid.

    Philippine Olympic Committee president Celso Dayrit also said that the Philippines' experience "was both heartwarming and heartbreaking" and congratulated the athletes "who tried their best to give honor to our country."

    He also pointed out that the Philippines' 16-member delegation to Athens has done much better than in Sydney, "breaking three Philippine swimming records and coming close to the medals in taekwondo and archery," even it got smaller.

    "While our quest for an Olympic gold continues, we hope that the showing of our Olympians will inspire all our athletes for theSEA Games," he said. Enditem