Combat bets top performers in Incheon

INCHEON, South Korea – Team Philippines broke camp yesterday and flew back to Manila, with only a skeleton force left behind to settle the unpaid bills from the P40 million fund coughed up by taxpayers for the participation of over 200 athletes and officials who had been here for the just-ended 17th Asian Games.

Various sectors that have watched in embarrassment and disgust as the Philippines plummeted to its worst-ever 22nd place in the Games in 63 years, following its worst-ever performance in the Southeast Asian Games in the last three editions in Laos (2009), Indonesia (2011) and Myanmar (2013) and another Olympic medal drought in between, wonder if a more devastating storm is yet to come.

Team Philippines came to the Asian Games without the best possible preparation needed to make many of its Filipino athletes competitive against the best there are at the Asian level.

Ironically, only sports associations that didn’t depend on government’s bureaucratic, half-hearted support, or individuals who funded their own training, given the lack of full support from the government or their national sports associations and nevertheless trained hard, have given the Filipinos something to cheer about in the Games.

Fil-American Danny Caluag made do with the meager allowance he received as an elite athlete for winning the gold medal in the 2013 SEA Games. He took in Olympic BMX coach Gregory Romero, who attended to the technical aspects, which included “reverse engineering” focusing on top acceleration from the starting gate, cross training (gym work), nutrition and exposure in the highly-competitive US circuits.

He could not train in the Philippines because his family is in the US, the PhilCycling doesn’t have a BMX coach, the Philippines doesn’t have a BMX track and the government cannot yet construct one according to the rigid Olympic standards of the London Olympics track constructed at a cost of $24 million, including the building and other facilities for international competitions.

He had to train in the US under Romero, who coached a male silver medalist and a female bronze medalist in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

He and Caluag first met two months before the Olympics in London where the latter finished 32nd and last, but Romero saw in Caluag a fellow Fil-American who had the potential for the sport and the passion to become the country’s first gold medal winner in the 2016 Olympics. 

Because the cost to participate in the US circuit is quite high taking into account entry fees, bike maintenance and uniforms, Caluag could only compete in the non-ranking circuits not sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). He did so in between training, his nursing internship and his role as provider for a family and a brand new baby.

It was therefore not surprising that Caluag’s readiness for the Incheon Games was in question. During the last 12 months, he had no UCI records the Philippine Sports Commission-Philippine Olympic Committee task force could examine to qualify him for Incheon under the “medal with potential” policy of the PSC.

The rest is history.

NSAs that accept without reservation the mandate to train national athletes for international competitions have produced the best performers in the Asian Games. Among the 15 medal producers of the Asian Games, the privately funded martial arts or combat sports – boxing (1 silver-3 bronze), taekwondo (5 bronze), wushu (2 silver, 1 bronze) and karate 1 bronze) – accounted for 13, with the other bronze contributed by archery and the lone gold by cycling.

The boxers of the boxing association, under Manny V. Pangilinan, Ricky Vargas and Patrick Gregorio, continued to sustain a program that discovered championship material from the grassroots while training its veteran elite athletes for international competitions.

The boxers competed in international tournaments and capped their Baguio training with a two-week intensive camp in Adelaide before the Games. The association, under Vargas, has dispensed with foreign coaches in favor of local mentors now under the supervision of new national coach Nolito Velasco.

The program produced four medals from eight boxers – six men and two women.

“One silver and three bronzes are good enough considering that it’s difficult to win here (in Incheon),” said Vargas and Gregorio, referring to the scoring system that resulted in bad officiating which favored the host country and other foreign teams. The boxing association maintains a policy of fairness in the conduct of games, shunning offers of rigging the games to favor Filipino boxers.

Given fair and square officiating, the boxers could have won at least four gold medals that would have given the boxing association the overall supremacy in the quadrennial meet, matching that of the 1994 Asian Games team. But the gold was taken away from them somewhere between the preliminaries and the finals.

Charly Suarez, whose up-and-down boxing career made him a longshot among six male boxers to advance to the medal round, became the most consistent although he did so with scary wins over foes from Uzbekistan (2-1), India (2-1), Iraq (3-0), Jordan (2-1) before eventually losing in the final to Mongolian Dorjnyambuu Otgondalai.

The three others – Olympian Mark Anthony Barriga (light flyweight), Wilfredo Lopez (middleweight) and Mario Fernandez – got only as far as the semifinals, while Ian Clark Bautista (flyweight) dropped out in the round of 16. 

Barriga lost to a Korean in the semis, so did Bautista to a Korean much earlier.

In other combat sports, Filipinos managed four bronze medals in taekwondo, a sport with a nationwide talent identity program funded by the MVP Foundation, from 2013 Universiade silver medalist Samuel Thomas Harper Morrison (lightweight), Benjamin Keith Sembrano (featherweight), Levita Ronna Ilao (flyweight), Mary Anjelay Pelaez (fin weight), and Elaine Alora (-73). 

They had one in karate from Mae Soriano and one more in wushu from Francisco Solis (-56 kg), who withdrew from the finals with a hairline fracture. 

The combat sports that failed miserably were judo and wrestling.

Much of the sob story came from heavy losses in bowling where World Cup veterans finished outside the top 10 in every event, in weightlifting where a much-touted lifter failed to carry the weight on three attempts and the softball team which finished fourth for the second time in the Games with a huge 15-member delegation.

Swimming continued its alarming decline under a president who could not make himself available for interview to explain the tragic losses despite elite funding from the PSC. He recommended an initial list of 44 swimmers which were pruned down to three which did not fair better either.

Jessie King Lacuna failed to advance to the final with a time of 1:53.20 for 15th in the 200m freestyle, 51.89 seconds for 17th in the 100m freestyle and 55.18 for 13th in the 100m butterfly.

Joshua Hall was 12th in the heats of the 100m breaststroke (1:03.26) and ninth in the 50m breaststroke (28.67 seconds). 

Jasmine Alkhaldi also did not advance although she had the best performance among the three. She was 10th in the 50m freestyle (26.35 sec) and ninth in the 100m freestyle (56.92), 200m freestyle (2:02.85) and 100m butterfly (1:02.34).

The rugby team finished fifth. Mark Galedo finished 13th in the individual time trial,and  Ronald Oranza and Galedo 13th and 33rd, respectively in the road race in cycling.

The equestrian team of POC president Peping Cojuangco,composed of Joker Arroyo, Martin Diego Lorenzo, Marie Antonette Leviste and Mateo Rafael Lorenzo finished fifth in the team jumping event. 

Princess Superal failed in her bid to be the Queen of Asian golf, finishing 11th in the individual event with Mia Legaspi 13th and Pauline del Rosario 22nd. The women’s team finished fifth in the team event. The men’s team did even worse, as usual, finishing ninth. In individual competition, Rupert Zaragosa was 18th, Justin Raphael Quiban 37th, Raymart Tolentino 42nd and Kristoffer Arevalo 45th.

In artistic gymnastics, Reyland Capellan did not advance to the finals in any of the seven individual events.

In sailing, Ridgely Balladaores and Whok Dimapilis (men’s 470), Philippine standard bearer Geylord Coveta (minstral men’s windsurfer) and John Harold Madrigal (RS:X men’s windsurfer) were out of the medal race.

Netters Patrick John Tierro, Conrad Treat Huey, Ruben Gonzales, Denise Du and Melissa Lehnert failed to advance to the semis of singles, doubles, mixed doubles and team events.

The basketball team, the most-heavily funded of all sports, came home empty handed but they fought hard, fought well and always fought to win. The MVP Foundation used its vast resources to get the best possible combination of players and giving them training that included stints in the US and the World Cup. They had the best local players – small as they are – but didn’t have the tall man they needed to win the gold.

But every time they played, they drew hordes of Filipino supporters who cheered them all the way, sought their autographs and returned the next day to cheer them again.

The Philippine basketball team’s stint was the most watched sport in the Asian Games and despite the huge losses, the entire Filipino people will be back in the stands to cheer again for Smart Gilas if it makes to the Olympics of Rio.

To Filipinos, Smart Gilas always carried hopes of redemption in the Games. The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, with the support of the Philippine Basketball Association and their fans, continues to nurture that hope in their quest for Olympic glory.