Team RP named Athlete of the Year

For the first time in its 56-year history, the Philippine Sportswriters Association will confer its highest honor, the Athlete of the Year Award, to not one or two individuals, but collectively to the entire Team Philippines — numbering more than 700 — for emerging overall champion in the 23rd Southeast Asian Games.

Sheila Mae Perez, diving’s triple gold medalist, will represent the Filipino athletes who dethroned Vietnam, the 2003 winner, during the Awards Night scheduled Jan. 14 at the Manila Pavilion.

Joining Perez onstage are First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, Team RP chef de mission; Jose "Peping" Cojuangco Jr., president of the Philippine Olympic Committee; and William "Butch" Ramirez, chairman of the Philippine Sports Commission.

"For winning the championship for the very first time despite the tough odds, the sportswriters have unanimously chosen team Philippines as its Athlete of the Year," said PSA president Jimmy Cantor of Malaya.

"The athletes and officials who made up the national team richly deserve this honor and for that the association will fete them in simple but meaningful rites in a few weeks," he added.

President Arroyo has been invited to be the guest of honor.

Hosting the biennial meet for the third time since becoming its fifth member in 1977, the Philippines, which came breathtakingly close to beating Indonesia for the overall championship during the Manila staging in 1991, won 113 gold medals, 84 silvers and 94 bronzes, more than double its haul of 49-55-75 in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City two years ago.

A 20-gold binge on Day Two, highlighted by Perez’s exploits on the springboard events at the Trace Aquatic Center in Los Baños, Laguna, gave the host an early advantage, which Vietnam and Thailand failed to overcome.

During an eight-day period, Team RP galvanized the whole country as local athletes post stirring conquests in practically all fronts, including Miguel Molina in swimming, Benjie Tolentino in rowing, Arvin Ting and Willy Wang in wushu, Cecil Mamiit in tennis, Ronnie Alcano in billiards, and SEA Games record-breakers Henry Dagmil and Arniel Ferrera in athletics.

Wushu delivered 11 gold medals, the most by any discipline. Athletics had nine, as with aquatics (diving and swimming); billiards and snooker, and boxing eight each; taekwondo and traditional boat race with six apiece; fencing and wrestling five each; judo and bowling both with four; archery, arnis, karatedo, muay, rowing, shooting and tennis three each; bodybuilding, cycling, dancesport, golf and softball two apiece; and baseball, equestrian, lawnbowls, pencak silat and sailing one gold each.

The PSA, established in 1949, is the oldest media group in the country and has a present membership of about 100 sportswriters from leading broadsheets and tabloids.