Golden year in women’s sports

The Philippines achieved its best olympic performance at the recently concluded 2020 Summer olympics in Tokyo. our total haul of four medals consisting of one gold, two silvers and one bronze was our biggest since our country joined the event 97 years ago in Paris.

Filipinos can be world class in their favorite sports. Chess player Wesley So and world champion weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz have shown the way. Many others are making their marks in their chosen events. EJ Obiena, who is currently making waves in the sports capital in Europe, will remain a serious contender in pole vault.

For the first time, a Filipino athlete, Hidilyn Diaz, has topped her event in weightlifting, ending our country’s quest for an Olympic gold. Her spectacular achievement was supported by another heroic performance of another Filipina athlete, Nesthy Petecio, who won a silver medal in boxing. Not to be completely outdone, Filipino pugilists Carlo Paalam and Eumir Marcial also brought home a silver and a bronze to make our last Olympic outing the most successful in history. We have participated in every edition of the Summer Olympic Games except the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow when we joined the Us-led boycott of the games. We were the first country in Southeast Asia to compete and the first to ever win a medal. Teofilo Ildefonso copped a bronze medal in swimming in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam.

In professional sports, female athletes of Filipino descent have made their names a household word. Yuka Saso is a Japanese name but she’s every inch a Filipino. She was born in San Ildefonso, Bulacan on June 20, 2001 to a Japanese father and a Filipina mother. She learned golf from her father and started playing at age eight. As an amateur player, Yuka was a fierce and feared competitor both in the Philippines and abroad. She had snatched a string of championship titles locally and abroad, making her a well decorated junior and amateur player. She’s a Filipino national who proudly carries our national flag whenever and wherever she plays as a professional golfer. Yuka is the most successful professional golf player from the Philippines—men or women. She won the first ever gold medal for the Philippines in both the individual and team categories during the last Asian Games in 2018. Since she turned professional in 2019, she has won 3 LPGA tours in Japan and in the US. She has competed against the best golfers in the world and ended up among the top finishers. Yuka won the muchcoveted US Women’s Open title this year. Yuka displayed a lot of nerves when she defeated a top player from Japan, Nasa Hataoka, in a suddendeath playoff. During the recent Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Yuka copped 9th place in the women’s individual competition. With her major victories in the Japan circuit and the LPGA tours, she’s one of the top money earners in golf in the world. She pocketed a cool $1 million for winning the 2021 US Women’s Open. For her incredible performance, she was voted as the PSA Athlete of the Year in 2018 and 2020.

The latest sport Cinderella who traces her roots to the Philippines is Leylah Fernandez. This 19-year-old lass was born in Montreal, Canada to an Ecuadorian father and a mother whose Filipino parents migrated to Canada. Leylah had won her first WTA championship in Monterrey, Mexico early this year. She has been consistently playing well in other tournaments although she fell short of winning more titles. She failed to win the US Open Championship, one of the most prestigious crowns, but she earned $1.25 million for her runner-up finish. She is currently ranked No. 28 in the world. En route to the finals, Leylah has virtually beaten the current “who’s who” in women’s tennis. The names Osaka (No. 3), Kerber (No.16), Svitolina (No. 5) and Sabalenka (No. 2) did not intimidate her, although she all edged them in a deciding third set. These four players had won more than a dozen Slam championships. Leylah’s nerve-wracking wins prompted her father Jorge to comment on their postgame telephone calls that Leylah had “put him to hell and back.” We don’t mind journeying to hell provided she emerges victorious after the game.

Filipinos can be world class in their favorite sports. Chess player Wesley So and world champion weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz have shown the way. Many others are making their marks in their chosen events. EJ Obiena, who is currently making waves in the sports capital in Europe, will remain a serious contender in pole vault. Carlos Yulo, who failed to deliver a medal in gymnastics, is another competitor worth watching. Another female athlete in skateboarding, Margielyn Didal, reached the final round and landed 7th overall in the last Olympics. She had served notice to the world’s rated skaters when she became the Asian Games champion in skateboarding. We sent a total of 19 athletes to compete in 11 sports events during the last Olympics. The women outnumbered the men with 10 qualifiers against 9. There was no male competitor in weightlifting, a sport where Filipino women have displayed promise and class. Individual events where there are weight and size categories should be given priority in our sports development. Boxing, weightlifting, taekwondo and judo, for instance, immediately come to mind where we compete against opponents of the same weight. Other individual events like golf, tennis, shooting and gymnastics present us with fair opportunities for success. We should learn from the African countries, particularly Kenya and Ethiopia. For the past three decades, the best marathoners in the world have come from these two countries. Their entire sports development program is practically centered on long distance and cross-country running from 800 meters to a full marathon. The African governments are fully aware of their people’s genetic endowment and the favorable environmental conditions. They exploit to the hilt the fact that they are born and raised mostly in the mountains, which gives them stronger aerobic capacity needed to endure a marathon. Researches also show that winning has given them a psychological advantage. It reinforces their belief that they are unbeatable in their game and their opponents regard them as invincible. Filipino athletes can also dominate in their favorite sports. Filipino boxers are now getting known all over the world as one of the planet’s finest pugilists. Now we produce world boxing champions in such regularity that we have lost count of them, nor remember their names. Boxing promoters can now even stage a world championship unification bout pitting a Filipino world champion versus another Filipino world champion. And we can do that in other sports provided the government provides them the wherewithal to achieve their dream.