BOWLING legend Rafael “Paeng” Nepomuceno hasn’t lost his touch and declared to the whole world that he—owner of a record four World Cup trophies—maintains that golden pulse in his left hand.
Nepomuceno’s 65 years old now but the skill set that made him a legend of the sport earned him another victory at the recent 16th Asian Seniors Bowling Championships in Kuala Lumpur.
He ran away with the 65-plus age category men’s singles crown beating 59 other competitors along the way.
“Kalabaw lang ang tumatanda [only carabaos get old],” so they say and Nepomuceno was ageless in the alley.
Nepomuceno belongs to a rare breed of men who in the down slopping years of their career, when their skills have become warped, they still continue trying to dismiss the idea of hanging their competition uniforms in the service of flag and country.
This despite accomplishing unprecedented feats that undoubtedly made him one the world’s “greatest athletes” of all time.
Like the honor accorded him by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on November 20, 1999, when then IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch awarded him the IOC President’s Trophy in recognition of his three World Cup titles in three different decades—1976, 1980, 1992 and 1996.
President Joseph Estrada also vested in Nepomuceno the Legion of Honor alongside being named “Athlete of the Century” by the Philippine Sportswriters Association.
“I will treasure this IOC President’s Trophy for the rest of my life together with the Legion of Honor and the other awards and precious commendations I’ve received from the FIQ [International Bowling Federation] and world tenpin body,” said Nepomuceno, an athlete who has excelled in a non-Olympic sport.
That historic day in November 23 years ago was held during the opening ceremony of the FIQ World Championships in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and attended by the high priests of the FIQ, delegation heads of competing countries and members of the Bowling Writers Association.
Then Philippine Olympic Committee president Celso “Cito” Dayrit accompanied Nepomuceno to Dubai.
“It should make all of us Filipinos proud of Paeng, especially because the IOC is presenting the trophy to an athlete in a non-Olympic sport,” then said Dayrit, who passed away April 27 last year. “It’s truly meaningful and a good sign that the sport of bowling, which has been knocking at the IOC door for many years now, might finally be added to the Olympic calendar.”
Of course, Nepomuceno, a six-time world champion, is acknowledged worldwide as one the greatest bowlers of all time with the Guinness Book of World Records recognizing his accomplishments four times.
In 2020, the Guinness World Records confirmed that in 2019, Nepomuceno, then 62, beat his own world record for the fourth time after winning the most career international titles in tenpin bowling that spanned six decades.
Nepomuceno is the only bowler who has won titles in six succeeding decades—1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s.
Nepomuceno was the first male bowler to be inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1993 and a seven-foot statue of him is displayed at the entrance of the International Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum in Arlington, Texas.
He was also enshrined in the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame on November 22, 2018.
Nepomuceno started playing the sport at 12, winning his first major tournament at 15, and his first Bowling World Cup at 19. He achieved a rare grand slam by winning the Philippine Open, Asian Championships and the Bowling World Cup inside five months in 1976.
For winning his second World Cup in 1980, Nepomuceno emerged as the first back-to-back titlist in the history of the sport. His first three put his name and the country’s in the Guinness Book of World Records.
His fourth in Castle Reagh, Northern Ireland, was the ninth for the country counting his own victory in the International Amateur, now Philippine Sports Commission Commissioner Olivia “Bong” Coo’s 1979 crown, Lita de la Rosa’s World FIQ and Arienne Cerdena’s gold medal when bowling was a demonstration sport at the Seoul 1988 Olympics.
Tall at 6-foot-1, Nepomuceno was the first of only three bowlers inducted to the World Bowling Writers Hall of Fame, the other two being Coo and Sweden’s Annette Hagre Johannesson.
Recognized by the Philippine Senate as the “Greatest Filipino Athlete,” Nepomuceno also was the first of only two athletes to receive the Presidential Medal of Merit, the highest so honored by the President of the Philippines. The other was the late world boxing lightweight king Gabrieln “Flash” Elorde.
Nepomuceno’s more than hundred local and international victories remain unmatched by any other athlete in any sport.