Wishing for a gold

It can’t be the genes. The Chinese come from the same Asian gene pool, yet their athletes have been winning Olympic gold medals for many years.

It can’t be the level of economic development. Athletes from some of the poorest countries of Africa have been bagging Olympic golds.

It can’t be the political system. Both the leading democracies and some of the most repressive regimes have been sending first-rate athletes to the Olympic Games.

It can’t be the food, or the water… Okay, at least we can be proud to say that it must be the steroids, or perhaps powdered deer horn mixed with essence of cobra?

But of course that’s just consuelo de bobo, a balm for our national ego, since not all athletes dope their way to an Olympic gold.

Filipinos can only wonder why that gold medal has eluded the country for decades. Now, on the 108th year of the Olympic Games, our prospects still don’t look bright.

Yesterday, browsing on the Internet through thousands of photographs from the Summer Games in Athens, I was heartened to see a handful featuring Philippine athletes, only to be disappointed upon learning that middleweight boxer Christopher Camat and swimmer Miguel Molina didn’t make it past the qualifying rounds.

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The best we’ve achieved so far in the Olympics are two silver medals: the first won by boxer Anthony Villanueva in Tokyo in 1964, followed 32 years later by another boxer, Mansueto "Onyok" Velasco.

Last our office sports watchers heard about Villanueva, he was trying to sell his Olympic medal. We don’t know if there were any takers. Who remembers Villanueva these days? Not me, I must confess, since I’m no sports fan. I usually learn about foreign athletes only when they get AIDS, are accused of rape, bite off their opponent’s earlobe or marry a Spice Girl. Local athletes I become aware of only when they become senators, or when a son lands in jail for rape with multiple murder.

No Filipino has won an Olympic gold in my entire life. I’ve gotten so used to this sorry state of affairs that I’ve come to see it as the natural way of things, ordained by fate the way some people are born fair-skinned while others are born black and still others are brown. No amount of scrubbing with Block & White or papaya soap can change that.

Thus the Games hold little excitement for me, although I enjoy watching the gymnasts — from other countries, it must be emphasized — perform.

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Many Filipinos see no future in a career in sports. Sure, athletes can reap glory for their country, and it can pay well for winners. But you can’t eat glory. And with role models like Anthony Villanueva, the fame and financial reward are often seen as too transitory.

Some athletes past their prime manage to reinvent themselves as politicians or businessmen. Without a career change, however, many Philippine athletes find themselves bankrupt and begging for government assistance.

The time, effort, money and dedication required to excel in international sports are simply not worth it for many Filipinos. Career-wise, working as a truck driver in Iraq could be more enticing.

Filipinos do get interested in sports both local and foreign. Basketball and boxing are big here. What is missing is a determined drive to develop world-class athletes. Instead of developing good basketball players, we import them, and the ones we get aren’t even first-rate where they come from.

Maybe we take to heart too much the admonition that winning isn’t everything. That advice, however, is often given merely as a balm to losers. It should not be an excuse to wallow in mediocrity, to become the perpetual tail-ender in international athletic competitions.

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The government can take some pointers from countries that have been sliding in their medal hauls in previous Olympics.

Among the most notable are several countries in Eastern Europe, former members of the Soviet bloc whose funding for sports has been cut, and whose athletes no longer feel compelled to win big in the Olympics on pain of state punishment upon their return from the Games.

There are reports that even in China, growing prosperity and increasing political freedom are making youths lose interest in reaping athletic honors for their country. The reports said prospective athletes find the training too tough, the glory fleeting and the financial returns not worth it. To get rich is glorious, the late Deng Xiaoping declared. These days many Chinese realize this isn’t going to happen in sports, unless it’s professional basketball and they’re over seven feet tall and get pirated by the Americans.

What are certain countries doing? They’re getting the private sector to bankroll athletic training, in return for product endorsements. In the United States, where the Olympic Games are always big news, corporate sponsors long ago learned the value of an endorsement by outstanding athletes.

Now Russia is encouraging top businessmen to do the same for their athletes. Germany is providing better incentives for athletic excellence.

I don’t know if the performance of Team Iraq will slide now that members who fail to meet certain standards are no longer threatened with execution by the son of Saddam Hussein. Will material incentives work better?

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Winning for money, with national glory as a bonus, is hardly in keeping with the Olympic spirit. But you have to admit it’s an irresistible incentive to go on tasteless power diets, to practice relentlessly several hours each day, to control sleeping hours and even one’s sex life to excel in sports.

Developing world-class athletes is not cheap. Lack of funds has kept the Philippines from developing athletes from an early age, when it is best to start training individuals who show potential. We don’t have enough funds even to build a playground in every barangay, much less a sports complex.

Our athletes often have to rely on their own resources to improve their performance. With proper training and dedication, we have seen some of our athletes excel – if not in the Olympics, at least in regional sporting events.

It’s not a racial, economic or political thing. The potential is there for Filipinos to excel in sports. One day soon we must bag that elusive Olympic gold. But you don’t wish for a gold medal; you work for it. The culture of medio-crity in Philippine sports need not be permanent.