NEW HEROES RISE IN PH ROMP TO SEAG DOMINANCE
The Philippines won the gold medal in the sport closest to its heart—and three more to highlight its basketball dominance in the region.
Usually, the Filipino cagers only needed to deliver the gold in the sport that is like religion here and it would soothe the pain of faltering overall finishes and disappointments delivered by other ballyhooed athletes in disciplines that were not as glamorous. Not this time.
Not here in front of an adoring throng desperately needing to see new heroes to get away from all the negativity on the flip side of the sports pages.
Swimming slump ends
The two weeks that passed saw swimming snap a decadelong slump, the revival of athletics, Philippine pugs pulverize their foes, gymnastics unveil its Olympic gold-medal hope in the flesh, Hidilyn Diaz perform head and shoulders above everyone else in her weightlifting class—and give justice to all her sponsorships demands— and new sports arnis and dancesports touching off the country’s campaign as the Filipinos scooted away from the opposition fast without looking back.
The country romped away with the overall title as predicted and established a Southeast Asian Games record along the way, with no one from the 10 other countries in the field able to give decent chase after 10 frenetic days of action in the seas, the pool, on fields and indoor stadiums that were hastily completed in time for the biennial event’s 30th staging.
But was it really the “best SEA Games” ever, as the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) kept harping before all of this started?
Celebration of athletes
Not bereft of controversies days—and even a few weeks— leading to the Games, this edition will go down in history as the Philippines coming up with a performance no other country has ever come close to doing. It would be interesting to see, though, how those who had a hand in the organization will deal with the wrath of Malacañang, which wasn’t spared the criticism following so many snafus, and that controversial, ultra-expensive cauldron that failed to impress during the opening ceremony held on Nov. 30.
Still, this was supposed to be a celebration of the athletes—of the Filipino variety, for sure— after everyone tugged at each other’s coattails in a total of 530 events from a record 56 sports just to find out who the superior one in this region is.
The Filipinos answered that in spades.
Team Philippines finished with an astonishing 149-gold, 117-silver and 121-bronze tally after the smoke of all the battles cleared, establishing an alltime mark in medals of those varieties won and a record in total with 387, as the Filipinos finished 99 medals ahead of second-placed Vietnam and 51 wins in front of the Vietnamese.
Arnis, a martial art that saw birth in the Philippines, won a total of 14 of the 20 gold medals staked, and dancesports, included in the Games for the first time after the Philippine Olympic Committee batted for it feverishly, added another 10, both inside the first five days of skirmishes, as the hosts broke away from the pack early and, as the old sports cliche goes, were never threatened the rest of the way.
Of those 56 sports, the Philippines failed to land gold in 23 while sweeping two—the newly introduced obstacle course race that offered six golds and the four of basketball as the Gilas Pilipinas men obliterated Thailand in the title game, which came after their women counterparts ended decades of frustration with their first-ever gold that went with wins in both divisions of the introductory 3X3 event a week before.
“It’s a happy day. We all worked hard for this,” Philippine chef de mission William “Butch” Ramirez, also the Philippine Sports Commission chair, said in a message. “The Philippine Olympic Committee, national sports associations, the organizing committee, the government, the private sector and the Filipino people all came together to show our team that the whole nation is behind them.”
Host winner
It was the second overall championship for the Philippines, with the first in 2005—when it was also host and with Ramirez also at the helm. The Philippine think tank really thought this one out by including all the events that the Filipinos were strong at to be able to give the country a solid shot at the title. They delivered. And more. “Our athletes gave their all and they deserve all the respect and care that we can give them,” Ramirez continued. “As kababayans and as a nation, you all made us proud. Salamat sa inyong sakripisyo, tiyaga at pagpupursigi.”
Carlos Yulo reintroduced the sport of gymnastics to this country, almost single-handedly filling the refurbished Rizal Memorial Coliseum on days that he competed as he showed everyone that his victory in the world championships in Stuttgart, Germany, two months ago was no fluke, and that the Philippines will be represented well in the Tokyo Olympics next year.
Diaz was a bundle of power and breezed to win the women’s 55-kilogram division with ease. She lifted a total of 211 kg, 14 kg better than the second-placed lifter. And to show that she is really in a class by herself in the country, the second gold medal winner in weightlifting, Kristel Macrohon, who won the 71-kg women’s division, had a total lift of 216 kg, just five more than Hidilyn’s effort though the difference in their weight classes was 16 kg.
Athletics smashed three Games records, with EJ Obiena and the comely Natalie Uy— who both trained abroad—resetting the men’s and women’s pole vault marks and Kristina Knott running 200 meters in a time of 23.01 seconds.
There were also disappointments on the track, with Eric Cray, who is being funded extensively by the Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association to become the region’s top sprinter, failing to get out of the heats of the century dash after two false starts.
The 31-year-old would make up for that somewhat, with a fourth straight win in the 400-meter hurdles after anchoring the 4X100 mixed relay team.
Athletics won a total of 11 gold medals, the second-most by any Philippine contingent, which is definitely impressive even though it could have won more if not for Knott’s loss— by a hair—in the 100 meters for women and Cray’s misadventure in the heats.
Volleyball gave out a performance to remember, and mind you, it’s not the glamorous women’s team that did that, but the men.
The Filipino spikers made the gold medal game for the first time in 42 years before bowing in straight sets to Indonesia for a silver that glittered brighter than the gold. The women were winless in four games—though the last one was so close that it could have salvaged the bronze.
No shortcuts to gold
The members of the women’s team came from two different leagues, and a number of their stars, in an exclusive interview with the Inquirer on Wednesday afternoon, said that losing in the Games was good, because it would tell the powers-that-be in the sport that a setup like the one they had would never be successful.
“It just can’t be that way,” said one of the stars. “It’s good that this (loss) happened. We can’t have shortcuts to the gold medal.”
Swimming contributed a gold medal, with James Deiparine sinking the 100-meter breaststroke record for the sport’s first win in the last 10 years.
It could be seen as a measly contribution by some, but for others, it signaled the rebirth of the sport as the federation looks forward to better days ahead with a pool of talents worthy of international victories.
Wednesday’s closing ceremonies, held at New Clark City in Pampanga province, was a great display of lights and of world-class Filipino talent on the entertainment scene as Arnel Pineda sang the “Lupang Hinirang” while belting out some of the hits of Journey to entertain another big gallery.
“The Philippines has one of the longest Christmas seasons, and this year, Christmas came early,” Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano, chair of the Phisgoc, said in his speech during the ceremonies. “We showed that we can do it with world-class quality. We celebrate today as overall champions of the SEA Games.”
He even told the huge crowd that this was the “most-viewed
SEA Games in history.”
“When we went for the gold, we went out with all our hearts,” Cayetano said in opening praise for Roger Casugay, the Filipino surfer who rescued his Indonesian competitor from drowning. He won the gold medal later when their competition was resumed. “But we didn’t allow the glitter of the gold to blind us. When an athlete’s life was at risk, it was clear to Roger what was more important than the gold (medal).”
That act of heroism didn’t go unnoticed, with Casugay named the flag bearer during the closing rites—an honor usually accorded to be the best performing athlete of the host country—while also getting praised by Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
But was this really the “best SEA Games ever?”
It was, in terms of the Filipino overachieving athletically, with that record medal haul expected to be untouched in the editions to come.
As for the other aspect of the competition—putting into consideration all the travel and accommodation mix-ups, lack of halal food at the start and the astronomical P6 billion spent that raised all sorts of corruption allegations—the jury’s still out on that.inq