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We wish.
That seems to be our collective sigh as we watch the
Olympic Games unfold day by day in Beijing.
After the harvest of medals by the
sports superpowers of the world, we are all watching
from the sidelines, as the parade goes by.
Along with our dreams of an Olympic gold
comes the wake-up call for our sports program which,
according to Philippine Sports Commission chair Butch
Ramirez, is sick beyond compare. He said it before we
sallied forth into this friendly Armageddon in China. He
said it again when his words were proven right after the
fact.
He blames it on the Philippines’ lack of
experts in the various sports, claiming our national
sports associations have developed very few coaches with
masteral degrees in their respective fields. As a
result, we have lagged behind neighbors like Vietnam,
Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and even “tiny
Hong Kong.”
The fact that we have not yet won
bronzes in the sports that we thought we had a good
chance in says a lot about our objective assessment of
our state of preparedness, if not our true worth.
“Dismal” is how Beverly Lopez, a new
University of the Philippines graduate, describes our
Beijing misadventure. “I really expected our athletes to
make good, what with all the preparations and the
spotlight on their training. It was such a shock that
our best bets didn’t even make it in the qualifying
stages. Even if they don’t win any medals, I at least
expected them to perform better.”
Could it
be that our standards are not really on a spar with what
the world thinks is “citius, altius, fortius”? Take the
case of swimmer Miguel Molina, who fell behind in the
water but broke the Philippine swim record. The same
with Hawaii-trained Christel Simms, our lone female swim
bet, who also failed to qualify but outdid herself in
the Water Cube. Those feats that upped the benchmark of
the best and the brightest in Philippine sports were not
enough to catch the fins of the competition in Olympic
waters.
The early disqualification of our
shining bet in boxing, Harry Tañamor, was depression
galore. After all, this is a sport where we have a
reputation for putting a lot of Mexicans to sleep. The
tempo, it seems, was set by shotgun ace Eric Ang, who
finished dead last in his category. But let’s not forget
the pressure he went through—first-time jitters in an
international competition with the Philippine flag
draped around your shoulders.
We feel sad for diver Shiela Mae Perez,
another great brown hope. And Tshomlee Go who dropped
out of the run for gold. Our hopes are pinned on just
one more athlete, Antoinette Rivero, who will play the
game of her life tomorrow.
We like to blame politics and
mismanagement of sports programs with developments like
these. But the Beijing blowout is nothing new. We were
medal-less, too, in the last two Olympics (Sydney and
Athens). Does this mean we had better athletes and
simpler but more effective sports programs in the past?
Could be. But there is no one single factor that will
bring an instant solution.
Now
we’re Olympics-watching from the outside looking in. Not
really a bad thing, considering that there is joy even
in vicarious participation. With a new Olympics, new
heroes and heroines have emerged. And the athletes in
our short list below have been etched in our
consciousness as true attention-getters, worthy of our
adulation:
1. Michael Phelps. Hands-down the hero
of the Games, he holds the record for the most gold
medals won at a single Olympics. Overall, Phelps has a
collection of 16 Olympic medals: six gold and two bronze
at Athens in 2004, and eight golds at the 2008 Summer
Olympics in Beijing. With these, he has twice equaled
Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin’s record of eight
medals (of any type) at a single Olympics.
2. Usain Bolt. His record-smashing 9.69
record in the 100 meters was a true eye-popper. That,
plus the Jamaican sweep of the women’s 100, is said to
be proof that Jamaicans run like the wind. Lloyd
Lovindeer wrote a song after Bolt broke the 100-meter
record of his countryman Asafa Powell last May. “We’ve
been running ever since we came here, many years ago,”
the song goes. “Now the whole world wanna know how we
running so. They say there must be something in the air,
down there in Jamaica, that make Jamaicans run like the
wind.”
3. The US Basketball Team. They’ve
really living up to their reputation as the Redeem Team
in the Beijing Olympics—erasing whatever trace there is
of their disappointing show in Athens. All are awesome,
but special mention is made of Dwyane Wade, who’s come
into this arena bigger, stronger and better. “He has
never had such strength in those shoulders and legs,
never leaped higher in his life. He’s been the
Americans’ top scorer with 16.2 points and a destructive
force on defense,” wire reports say. Wade said he “was
written off in one year quicker than anybody had ever
been. Being injured, it was like I had forgotten how to
play basketball. But it made me hungry… and put me back
in the position where I’ve always been. And that’s the
underdog.”
And now a special mention:
4. Leryn Franco. Just shows that
pulchritude is gold in the Games, as well. This
26-year-old javelin thrower from Paraguay who looks like
a beauty queen/model finished second to last in the
qualifying throw that was 12 meters short of her
personal best. But to her fans, she is beauty incarnate.
“Leryn’s goal was never to medal,” says a fan. “It was
to win the hearts of men and women worldwide. And in
that event, Leryn Franco won gold.”
Check out the Internet for what we mean,
fellas. |
