MANILA, Philippines – Olympic boxing bronze medalists Leopoldo Serrantes and Roel Velasco, basketball living legend Robert Jaworski and Southeast Asian Games’ long jump queen Elma Muros-Posadas will lead the 10 Filipino athletes who will be enshrined to the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame.
Serrantes and Velasco automatically made the list after the Philippine Sports Commission decided to seed all Olympic medalists to the elite group of Hall of Famers having pocketed a bronze medal in the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Games, respectively.
The feat was timely specifically for the 58-year-old Serrantes, who was confined in the Intensive Care Unit of the Philippine Veteran’s Hospital last January due to pulmonary and heart ailment as all inductees are set to receive P200,000 each.
Jaworski, who recently turned 75, was part of the Philippine team that won the FIBA Asia Championships twice in 1967 in Seoul and 1973 in Manila as a player, a coach when the country took the silver in the 1990 Beijing Asiad and one of the PBA’s 40 Greatest Players.
Muros-Posadas, for her part, was an Olympian and two-time Asian Games bronze winner (1990 Beijing and 1994 Hiroshima) and reigned supreme in the SEAG many times including the 1983 Singapore edition where she blew away the field at the age of 16 years old.
Other members of the fourth batch of inductees were booter Paulino Alcantara, tankers Eric Buhain and Gertrudes Lozada, cager and booter Dionisio Calvo, bowler Arianne Cerdena and sprinter Rogelio Onofre.
They joined the cream of the crop of Filipino athletes like basketball legend Caloy Loyzaga, Asia’s first chess Grandmaster Eugene Torre, Asia’s fastest woman Lydia de Vega-Mercado, four-time world bowling king Paeng Nepomuceno and boxing icon Gabriel “Flash” Elorde.
“It was a journey of discovery, I’m pleased with the choices of both review and and selection committees,” said PSC chairman William Ramirez.
Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham Tolentino also lauded the effort.
“I definitely appreciate the work of the committee for this recognition of our sports heroes, who are inspirations to all.
The search committee was composed of Games and Amusement Boards chair Abraham Mitra, POC secretary-general Edwin Gastanes, PhilCycling’s Billy Sumagui, Philippine Olympians Association president Akiko Thomson Guevara, UAAP executive director Rene Saguisag Jr. and select members of the sports media.