The Thais move on in all fronts

BANGKOK – Unlike in our past visits to this capital city of Thailand, the car ride from the huge Suvarnabhumi airport to our hotel in downtown Bangkok on Tuesday last week took a little less than an hour. Had we taken the express train to the city, it would have taken probably less than 30 minutes. Bangkok’s freeways have begun to reap dividends for a city that suffered from floods not too long ago.

The three hour and 15 minute flight on Thai Airways was smooth preceded by a pleasant conversation in the Thai Airways lounge at NAIA 1 with movie actor Jericho Rosales. Echo as Rosales is called, was earlier met by a screaming mob, mainly of women, as he entered the terminal. With Rosales was, among others, Maria Ines Elizalde of Genesis Entertainment and Management. Rosales and Elizalde were also headed for Bangkok where the affable Rosales was to do a commercial.

At some point, our conversation shifts to sports, women’s volleyball specifically, Rosales having seen on television the first game of the finals between DLSU and ADMU at the Araneta Coliseum. The Lady Archers came from behind to win the crucial first game.

Elizalde, coincidentally is a DLSU fan, her husband having graduated from DLSU in 1979. Both Rosales and Elizalde are amazed at the popularity of women’s volleyball and are regretful that, like us, they won’t be able to watch game two of the best-of-three showdown. The next time we would see Rosales and Elizalde would be at Suvarnabhumi where they were met by their hosts.

Given our momentary fixation with the UAAP women’s volleyball game two finals between defending champion DLSU and ADMU, one of our first priorities was to make arrangements with friends back home to text us regularly on Wednesday on the progress of the game. Our attention was distracted several times during our business meeting as we checked our cell phone for messages from our son, Joseph; DLSU basketball team manager, Terry Capistrano; international volleyball official Tats Suzara and our namesake and boyhood friend, Popoy del Rosario.

After probably over 50 text messages, we where able to get word that the DLSU Lady Spikers repeated its three peat of 2003-2005 (when we were privileged to manage the start-studded Lady Archers squad) with a decisive victory at the jampacked Mall of Asia Arena in the third set, 25-16. The Lady Spikers won the first two sets 25-23 and 25-20 prior to driving in the proverbial final nail in the coffin.

It was DLSU’s 15th straight win after an opening day loss to the UST Tigresses who failed to make it for the first time in years to the Final Four. The title was the Archers’ seventh championship since 2003 and makes them one of the squads with the most titles since the Final Four format was introduced in the mid-1990’s.

To be thinking women’s volleyball while in Thailand can be considered most appropriate and timely since the Thais are considered the women’s volleyball power in Southeast Asia. Consider the following credentials:

Gold medalist in 16 of 17 SEA Games since 1977. The Thais settled for the silver medal in Singapore in 1993, after winning gold eight consecutive times. The Thais however continued their domination from 1995 to 2011.

In the much tougher Asian Games where the Thais had to contend with China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, Thailand manage to finish respectably, from fourth to sixth places in 1966 to 2010. In the Asian Cup, Thailand won bronze in 2008, silver two years later and gold last year.

In the Asian championships, Thailand won bronze in 2001, bronze again in 2009 and finally pocketing gold in 2009. The Thais will definitely aim for gold this year as they will be playing host to Asia’s best women spikers.

Proof of the disparity between ASEAN and world standards is in the world championships, the best performance of the Thais was 13th place in 2010.

In the World Grand Prix, Thailand’s best performance was fourth place in 2012. The Thais are aiming to improve their Olympic performance having failed to qualify for the Olympics where the cream of the cream meet.

If the Thais set their hearts and minds to it, they can succeed in fulfilling their ambitions. Thailand has reached almost full employment and possesses all the ingredients for success, not the least of which is a hardworking population.

The big news in sports in Thailand is the country’s latest golfing sensations: teenaged sisters Ariya (17 years) and Moriya Jutanugarn (collectively called Mo-May) and 23-year old Pornanong Phatlum. All three finished in the top 15 of the HSBC Women’s Champions in Singapore, perhaps Asia’s major women’s golf tournament.

Certainly, Thailand, which, no more than 40 years ago was behind the Philippines in terms of economic stature, should serve as a model on how to work as a team to achieve near spectacular results.