Sports: Read This Until It Hurts
One of our more seasoned law professors at the University of Negros
Occidental-Recoletos here in Bacolod City emphasized the importance of reading
more often our School of Law books in order to fully understand the subject
matter.
He said: ‘Read, read, read until it HURTS!’ during our first day in school at UNO-R for the 2012-13 school year as sophomore students. Aptly written is today’s issue of your Sideline Spectator in relation to the upcoming London Games set to begin at the end of the month.
This coming July 27, the 2012 Summer Olympics will open in London, United Kingdom and will run until August 12 with the Philippines sending the smallest contingent ever since 1996-eleven athletes set to participate in eight sports disciplines.
In as much as the history of the country’s participation in the quadrennial event is concerned, the Philippines has won two silver medals and seven bronze medals since 1924. The two silver medals were won in boxing by Anthony Villanueva during the 1964 Tokyo Games and Bago City’s Mansueto Velasco during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
The bronze medal winners were swimmer Teofilo Yldefonso during the 1928 and 1932 Games, men’s high jumper Simeon Toribio at the 1932 Los Angeles Games, boxing’s Jose Villanueva also in 1932, Miguel White’s bronze medal-finish in 1936 in Berlin (400 meters hurdle) as well as boxers Leopoldo Serantes (1988 Seoul Games) and Roel Velasco (1992 Barcelona Games).
Sad to say, in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Games, the country was blanked in all fronts with wushu winning a gold medal in Beijing (2008) courtesy of Willy Wang. However, wushu was a demonstration sport hence Wang’s medal did not count in the final medal standings.
During the 1988 Seoul Games in South Korea, bowler Arianne Cerdena also won the gold medal in her sport albeit bowling was played as a demonstration sport then. Ditto with Stephen Fernandez and Bea Lucero’s bronze medal win during the 1992 Barcelona Games in taekwondo which did not count being a demonstration sport, too.
The last time around, the government and the private sector allotted P15 million for a gold medal winner during the Beijing Games yet no one from among the 15 competitors in eight sports disciplines managed to even get closer for a possible third-place finish!
Boxer Harry Tañamor failed to even get past the first round of his light flyweight bout in losing to his Ghanian opponent. Other medal hopefuls like taekwondo’s Mary Antoinette Rivero and Tshomlee Go both failed to advance after bitter opening round setbacks.
This time around, another bleak prospect for our Filipino athletes in London is in the offing what with a very lean delegation aside from lack of probable medal winners among the 11 Phl standouts in eight sports as of June 22, 2012.
The (un)lucky members of the Philippine contingent to the 30th Olympiad are archers Mark Javier and Rachel Cabral, Rene Herrera in the 3000m steeplechase, long jump’s Marestella Torres, light flyweight Mark Barriga of boxing, Daniel Caluag in men’s BMX, judo’s Tomohiko Hoshina and Brian Rosario in the skeet event of shooting.
Others include swimming’s Jessie Khing Lacuna and Jasmine Alkhaldi as well as weightlifting’s Hidilyn Diaz (women’s 58 kgs). Lean yet not mean, the contingent needs more than just sheer guts and luck in order to win even a single bronze medal in London!
Reading this piece really hurts!
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