2022: proud year for Philippine sports

First of a series

As the world of sports continued to flourish under the new normal, Filipino athletes in various disciplines found ways to give their countrymen enough reason to cheer.

The “Big 3” of weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, pole-vaulter EJ Obiena and gymnast Caloy Yulo shone overseas. From Bogota in Colombia to Eugene in Oregon and the crowded streets of Hanoi, they lived up to expectations and even beyond, and provided the glitter to the year that’s about to pass.

Many others delivered the headlines from different corners of the world, including the Philippine women’s football team, collectively known as the Filipinas, that made history by advancing to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Alex Eala, the precocious tennis star, continued her rise by winning the juniors title in the prestigious US Open, with hopes of doing as good or even better in the women’s ranks.

But it wasn’t a bed of roses for Philippine sports all throughout 2022, with Team Philippines slipping to a “decent” fourth-place finish in the 31st Southeast Asian Games after a remarkable stint as overall champions on home soil in 2019. The men’s basketball team, Gilas for short, lost the gold that matters most in the biennial event. Still, the highly touted squad of coach Chot Reyes closed out the year on a high note with victories over Jordan and Saudi Arabia in Window 5 of the FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers, and continued to look forward to the country’s hosting of the basketball’s centerpiece event, the FIBA World Cup, in August of 2023.

The PBA truly is back on its feet as it looked forward to its first three-conference season since amid the pandemic. In college basketball, Ateneo regained the UAAP throne it lost to University of the Philippines, whose reign as champion lasted no more than seven months. The Letran Knights completed a three-peat in the NCAA during a season that witnessed an incident where a player from Jose Rizal University threw punches during a game against St. Benile, like he was Manny Pacquiao, who, incidentally, came out of retirement to face a South Korean martial arts expert and YouTube star in a six-round exhibition bout in ice-cold Seoul.

The Philippines also struck in the field of karate, and made heads turn by winning an international beach volley tournament under the bright, scorching sun of Subic.

In general, 2022 is a positive year for Philippine sports. It’s a year to remember as well.

Hidilyn rules world

From being an Olympic gold-medal winner to now also being a world champ.

Weightlifting demigod Hidilyn Diaz has completed a great collection of championship wares with a magnificent three-gold sweep in her category in the International Weightlifting Federation World Championships early this month in Bogota, Colombia.

Apart from her triumph in the Worlds where she also had three bronzes, Diaz had wreaked havoc in the Olympics (a gold and silver), Asian Games (gold), Asian Championships (a gold, silver and a bronze), Southeast Asian Games (two gold, two silver and a bronze) and countless other competitions.

In the Colombian capital, Diaz was a class of her own in breezing through to victories in snatch where she lifted 93 kilograms, clean and jerk with 114 kg for a total of 207 kg.

It wasn’t as fantastic as her “lift of faith” in the Tokyo Games where she had 97 kg in snatch and 127 kg in clean and jerk for a total of 224 kg, but it was enough to get the job done.

And she isn’t about to slow down.

Diaz has set her sights at competing in more meets in 2023 including the Phnom Penh SEA Games, the Hangzhou Asian Games and qualifying competitions to the 2024 Paris Olympics where she hopes to add another golden performance in the quadrennial event.

But whatever happens in the French capital, Diaz has carved a niche as among the rare breed of generational athletes the country has produced.

Obiena vaults to glory

One could sense the body language of EJ Obiena that he too wants to leave a big mark in the world stage.

And by his powerful 2022 showing, the Filipino pole-vault star is getting closer and closer to achieving the goal.

Obiena’s biggest moment came in July in Eugene, Oregon in the United States where he delivered the country’s historic first medal – a bronze – in the World Athletics Championships, and in September in Brussels, Belgium where he captured the gold in the Memorial van Damme while, for the first time, beating the dragon of the sport – the mighty Swedish titan Armand Duplantis.

It was a pair of spectacular performances that trumped his other 2022 conquests in Stabhochsprung in Jockgrim, True Athletes Classics in Leverkusen and St. Wendel City Jump in Sankt Wendel all in August and in Germany.

It was apart from the bronze he copped in the Athletissima in Lausanne, Switzerland the next month.

In Eugene, Obiena not only accomplished what others before him had failed to do, he also set new national and Asian records with a splendid clearance of 5.94 meters.

It was more memorable in Brussels where Obiena ended Duplantis’ long, indomitable streak of 20 straight victories.

Another banner year for Caloy

Filipino champion gymnast Carlos Edriel “Caloy” Yulo added a silver medal and a bronze to his stockpile of medal collections in the World Championships last November in Liverpool, England.

The silver came in vault and the bronze in parallel bars.

It wasn’t the performance that the pocket-sized dynamo from Leveriza, Manila had expected following his glorious efforts in last year’s edition in Kitakyushu, Japan where he had a vault mint and a parallel bars silver and in 2019’s Stuttgart, Germany meet where he struck gold in his pet floor exercise.

Nonetheless, he stayed as among the world’s best in his discipline, with his performance keeping the Philippine flag flying proudly.

His podium finishes in vault and parallel bars somehow soothed the pain of his downfall in floor exercise.

The Liverpool experience capped a fruitful year for Yulo, who hauled three gold (floor exercise, vault and parallel bars) and bronze (all-around) in the Asian Championships in Doha, Qatar and emerged the most be-medalled Filipino athlete in the Hanoi Southeast Asian Games where he harvested five gold (all-around, floor exercise, still rings, vault and horizontal bar) and two silver (team and parallel bars).

Breakthrough for Filipinas

The Philippine women’s football team, more fondly called Filipinas, kicked into high gear in 2022.

After making strides in recent years, even going one win shy of cracking football’s showpiece in 2018, the persevering Filipinas met their date with destiny and delivered history-setting feats.

In a memorable campaign in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup in India, the Pinay booters roared to a massive 1-0 win over regional rival Thailand and a 6-0 shutout of Indonesia in-between a fighting 4-0 loss to powerhouse Australia to finish second in Group B.

This sent the charges of Alen Stajcic into the quarterfinal round and in striking distance of a coveted semifinal ticket and a long-aspired slot in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Up against Chinese Taipei in the most important game of their lives, the Filipinas stepped up to the plate and hammered out the biggest victory of all, 4-3 on penalties, to seal the Philippines’ transformation from minnows to among the elite in women’s football.

The star-making performance in the Pune Asian meet in January was just the start of the Filipinas’ stellar run.

Four months later, the Pinay footballers returned to the field for the pandemic-delayed Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam.

After splitting their assignments in Group A, Philippine XI reached the semis. It bowed to Thailand, 3-0, but still made the most of their shot at a podium finish. Through goals from Sarina Bolden and Quinley Quezada, the Filipinas rallied to a 2-1 win over Myanmar in the battle for third to secure their first SEAG medal since the 1985 edition.

Two months later, it was a grand homecoming at the Rizal Memorial Stadium as the country hosted the Asean Football Federation (AFF) Women’s Championship.

Posting a 4-1 record in Group A, the home squad easily made it to the semis as group No. 2 then continued the charge with a vengeful 4-0 blanking of Vietnam.  Cheered on by a large roaring home crowd, the Pinay booters exacted revenge on Thailand in the ultimate battle, 3-0, to claim the country’s first Asean crown in history.

The squad spent the rest of the year honing their craft in training camps all over the globe and friendlies against higher-ranked and more established sides in preparation for its anticipated World Cup debut in July in New Zealand.

Fall, rise of Gilas

It was a roller-coaster ride for a Gilas Pilipinas program that ideally should be humming the year before the anticipated FIBA Basketball World Cup campaign on home ground.

Just before the February window of the WC qualifiers, the National Team hit a major snag as program director and coach Tab Baldwin stepped down to primarily focus on Ateneo’s UAAP campaign.

Baldwin’s shocking exit after Gilas’ solid outings was exacerbated by the lack of available players for the Window 3 games with a number of pool members tied up overseas and PBA stalwarts deep in buildup with mother clubs for the new season.

Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas executives led by chairman emeritus Manny V. Pangilinan and president Al Panlilio turned to battle-tested coach Chot Reyes to steer Gilas back on track.

Reyes, who concurrently calls the shots for TNT, assembled a squad beefed up by Tropang Giga mainstays on short notice. The Nationals went 1-of-2 via an 88-64 rout of India and an 88-63 loss to New Zealand in Group A.

Then disaster struck.

Despite fielding a strong cast led by June Mar Fajardo and Matthew Wright, Gilas failed to retain the Southeast Asian Games gold medal as it suffered a shocking 85-81 loss to Indonesia in the battle for supremacy. This was followed by a missed quarterfinal stint in the FIBA Asia Cup in Jakarta.

The back-to-back letdowns hit the basketball-crazy nation in the gut with fans calling for heads to roll. But the program picked up the pieces from there.

Fil-Am NBA star Jordan Clarkson, still not considered a “local player” by FIBA, was tapped as naturalized player instead and formed the pillar of the Gilas crew with towering Kai Sotto.

Clarkson made his FIBA debut in August in the second round of the qualifiers, where Gilas dropped a close 85-81 defeat to host Lebanon then beat Saudi Arabia at home, 76-63.

The former NBA Sixth Man of the Year winner has committed to join his Gilas brothers, including PBA stars and aces from the Japan B. League, for three straight months of training ahead of the Aug. 25 to Sept. 10 worlds.

He now leads a growing pool of naturalized players with Ateneo’s Ivorian-born Ange Kouame and soon, Justin Brownlee, whose naturalization has already been approved by Congress and only awaits the signature of President Marcos.

To be continued