0
0
By Red Dumuk
As a student of Philippine Sports history, I was grieved by the failure of the Philippine Sports family to commemorate the 95th anniversary of the Philippines’ first-ever medal victory in the Olympic Games.
The celebration of the Games of the VIIth Olympiad where PHI’s entries swelled four times from a lone sprinter—David Nepomuceno–in her debut in Paris 1924, saw Teofilo Yldefonso finish third in the 200-meter breaststroke to net a bronze medal on August 8, 1928, in Amsterdam.
Perhaps, the sports bodies which should have spearheaded the commemoration wanted another five years to come to pass so that the commemoration could elicit a greater impact and it would be easy to stick to mind as a centennial celebration is of greater significance.
However, I could just wonder why the Centennial Anniversary of PHI’s bagging its first world title across all sports came to pass with nary a whimper. On June 18, 1923, at the Polo Grounds in New York City in the battle for the world flyweight crown, the Ilonggo Francisco Guilledo ”Pancho Villa” (he stood only at 5 foot, 1 inch) was knocked out in the 7th round his Welshman opponent he earlier dropped in the fourth and fifth rounds.
Guilledo, who emerged as not only the first Filipino but also the first Asian to sport a world boxing belt, was inducted into the Ring Magazine Boxing Hall of Fame in 1961 and 33 years later to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He was hailed as the #1Flyweight in the 20th Century and enshrined in the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame inaugurals in 2010.
In Los Angeles in 1932, Yldefonso dubbed as the “Ilocano Shark” stroked on August 13 to a repeat performance to emerge as the first Filipino double medalist in the pinnacle of all sports competitions.
Yldefonso, considered the “Father of Modern Breaststroke”, was enrolled in the International Swimming Federation Hall of Fame in 2010.
A native of Piddig, Ilocos Norte which honored him with a statue in its plaza, Yldefonso also stringed gold medals in the Oriental Olympics, later renamed Far Eastern Games (Osaka 1923, Shanghai 1927, Tokyo 1930 and Manila 1934), the precursor of the Asian Games.
High jumper Simeon Toribio and boxer Jose Luis Villanueva equaled Yldefonso’s bronze-winning effort on July 31 and August 13, 1932, respectively.
Missing the podium after clearing 1.91 meters with four other hopefuls and ending up in 4th position the previous Games, Toribio found himself in a familiar place—leaping 1.97 meters with three others, only this time a medal hung on his neck.
For his part, Villanueva took a bye in round 1 and decisioned a Japanese in the quarterfinals of the bantamweight division. In the semifinals, he bowed to a Canadian who eventually grabbed the gilt. In the match between the semis’ losers, Villanueva beat an American via decision. (From Helsinki 1952 onwards, this scheme was discontinued and both losers in the semis were awarded bronze apiece.)
The three bronze medals stood as PHI’s best medal output until Tokyo 1964 when Villanueva’s son Anthony was considered to have been robbed of the featherweight gold medal on October 23, 1964 in a Wood Dragon Year.
Villanueva’s opponent in the finals was one of the two favorites, a Soviet who” lived up to his billing by following a destructive route to the final in which he stopped or knocked out all four of his opponents”. Most prominent among Villanueva’s victims was the other favorite, an American he decision in the semis. Looking at Villanueva’s path to the gold medal match, in only one bout did he make short work of his foe.
In the interregnum between the best PHI showings, a Filipino with a Caucasian surname emerged on August 4, 1936, as one of those who denied Hitler’s propaganda about the superiority of the Aryan race. Miguel White rounded out the podium finishers, picking up the bronze in the Berlin 1936 400 meters hurdles.
On May 10, 2010, PHI’s first five Olympic medal winners—Teofilo Yldefonso, Simeon Toribio, Jose Villanueva, Miguel White and Anthony Villanueva—were included in the 10 inaugural inductees into the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame (PSHOF).
As in the three successive Games before WWII (Tokyo was awarded the right to host the 1940 Olympics], PHI managed to bag a medal each in three consecutive Games beginning 24 years removed from Tokyo in 1964. This time, our light flyweight boxers provided all the awards.
Leopoldo Serrantes plucked the seventh PHI’s medal—another bronze– during Year of the Earth Dragon when the Games swung back to Asia for the Games of the XIVth Olympiad, Seoul 1988. On September 29, 1988, Serrantes whose march to the semifinals was marked by two victories in the referee-stopped contests was decisioned by the eventual gold medalist from Bulgaria.
On August 6, 1992, at the Barcelona 1992, Roel Velasco absorbed a head blow that prompted the referee to stop his semifinal match against a Cuban, losing finalist in the 1991 Amateur World Championships, and settling for the bronze. The Cuban marched on to the top of the podium. Velasco, five years hence missed the gold by points in the world.
Leopoldo Serrantes and Roel Velasco entered the PSHOF on July 18, 2021, in a digital ceremony.
Just a shade taller than Pancho Villa at 5-foot, 1.5 inches, Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco, Jr., Roel’s younger brother, came very close to turning into reality then President Fidel v. Ramos’ assertion in his speech on March 23, 1994, during the launching of the Philippine National Games–“In the Philippine Sports Commission’s scheme of things, the Philippines can expect an Olympic gold medal in 1996.”
Seven months after PFVR’s address, Onyok showed big promise when he captured one of three gold medals reaped by the boxers in the Hiroshima Asian Games. The year prior to the Atlanta Centennial Olympics, he settled for the silver in the Amateur Asian Boxing Championships even as the Bulgarian he would be facing in the light flyweight finals of the Atlanta 1996 reigned in the Amateur Boxing World Championships and European Championships.
On August 3, 1996, Onyok fell short of fulfilling the lingering dream of the PHI sports family as the Barcelona 1992 silver medalist finally snaffled the gold. PHI remains gilt-less after 72 years of the Olympic campaign.
While it took a score for PHI to return to the medal column, such a comeback was milestone-setting, not because it happened in Rio de Janeiro 2016—the first time the Olympiad was celebrated in South America–but it was the first time a woman surfaced as medalist.
Redeeming herself from two forgettable back-to-back stints, weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz (HD), 2015 World bronze medalist, posted on August 7, 2016, the second-highest total in the featherweight class to snatch PHI’s third silver.
It would seem the Covid 19 pandemic proved to be a boon rather than a bane. Had the Tokyo 2020 pushed through as scheduled would the results for PHI be as well as they were?
As things turned out, PHI’s Olympic campaign reached a crescendo on July 26, 1921, when HD lifted the PHI to the gold-medal column, rewriting the Olympic standard in clean & jerk and total in the process.
But before I yield to the account in Olympedia.org it is well to note HD’s gold-medal feat was supplemented by the silver-winning ways of boxers Nesthy Petecio on August 3 and Carlo Paalam; and the bronze-medal effort of Eumir Marcial on August 5, thus:
“As expected, the strongest snatcher in the field, Nabieva, took the lead after lifting 98 kg on her third attempt and Liao followed close behind with 97 kg. Diaz also gave a great performance by managing 97 kg with her second lift. She also tried 99 kg but failed to clear that weight. Konotop cleared 94 kg to bring herself to fourth position while Chinshanlo and Kristina Şermetowa followed with 90 kg each.
“In clean & jerk, Nabieva put in a good performance by her standard, lifting 114 kg for a total of 212 kg. She had a clear lead before the top three clean & jerkers started their competition after all the others had already finished. Liao started with 118 kg with her first lift, but Diaz countered with 119 kg. Chinshanlo started with 123 kg, which she cleared in her second attempt, and it brought all three ahead of Nabieva and secured a medal for them.
“Liao lifted 123 kg in her second attempt, but this was again countered by Diaz with 124 kg. This gave Chinshanlo bronze, but the race for gold was not over. Again, Liao started with 126 kg, which meant that Diaz had to lift 127 kg in her last attempt as Liao had a lighter body weight. For the third time, Diaz fought back and cleared 127 kg to win gold leaving silver for Liao, who was the only lifter in this field who did not miss any of her six attempts.
“This was also the first-ever gold medal for the Philippines in Olympic history. The silver medal in this class would later turn out to be the only non-gold medal in weightlifting for China at these Games.”
2021, the Year of the Metal Ox, was a boon, indeed to PHI. By the way, the ox represents hard work and dependability.
Average Rating