Gilas Pilipinas at -16 degrees

Copying and pasting is something I don’t do often especially in writing columns. But once in a while, the stars align and fate deals us with material or information shared by others and must be shared as well. Last Friday March 1, I had the good fortune of having national coach Yeng Guiao on our show AGENDA on Cignal TV (ch. 8 and 250). Yeng and I used to play basketball back in our university days and each time we get to talk basketball he still manages to give me useful information on players, international competition etc. But last Friday, Coach Yeng shared details of the sacrifice the Gilas Pilipinas players and coaches had to make particularly when they moved from Qatar to Kazakhstan where the weather was -16 degrees. It seems that my friend and former motoring editor Dong Magsajo was quite moved by Guiao’s account that he went on Facebook and commented about the team and the interview:

“Sent from my iPhone Huling hirit in support of Gilas Pilipinas... To those armchair critics who do nothing but complain about our athletes and our team (half of those critics have never even played organized ball), my advice: watch Kuyang Cito Beltran’s interview with Coach Yeng over at One News Channel (there are replays) and pay particular attention to the segment where Coach describes the ordeal just getting the team to be physically in Kazakhstan. Forget about learning the system, putting in the work day in and day out, learning how to adjust and sacrifice, and executing all that in a limited amount of time. Just listen to how much they had to go through just to show up. And before you open your mouth the next time they fall short (they will, we are in the middle of a process), think about what our players and our coaches have to go through. I saw it all first hand. I was with them during the last Asian Games campaign in Korea (Gilas 2, post World Cup). And this is the truth: we owe them nothing but gratitude. We owe ALL of the athletes who carry our flag nothing but gratitude.

For those of you who missed the interview or have not subscribed to CIGNAL TV, here is the transcript of the interview given by Coach Yeng Guiao:

“Dumating kami roon it was -16, during our stay there it went as low as -18. When you get off the bus, you have to start jogging towards the gym, because the few minutes that you are exposed to the weather, it really affects you already. I think that’s also one reason why some of the players felt under the weather, and June Mar was one of them. But June Mar already felt like that in Qatar, sa Qatar pa lang masama na ang pakiramdam ni June Mar. So in Kazakhstan, I was worried because the weather was very extreme, sabi ko baka lumala but good thing for us he was able to recover. And now pagdating natin dito, I’m one of the people feeling the adjustments. It’s really just the discipline, the determination to be able to function as efficiently as you can.

Pero I’ll go back dun sa Kazakhstan, we were really okay in Qatar, we spent 4 or 5 days there practicing before we played the game and the Filipino community in Qatar was fantastic, they really supported us, even the tickets in the stadium, tinaasan nila yung bayad para siguro mas maraming Qatari ang bumili pero ang bumili ng ticket mga Pilipino pa rin. They were really able to fill up the stadium and support us boisterously. Then pagpunta namin sa Kazakhstan, it was really tedious, it was very hard on our bodies because what happened was right after the game we had to pack up, go to the airport, it was a 5-6 hour trip, we were in Istanbul Turkey, at the airport for 8 hours and then after 8 hours, we took a 4-6 hour trip to Astana in Kazakhstan. We stayed at the airport at Astana for 3-4 hours just waiting for our visas, we could not get out of the airport, because the visas are supposed to be issued at the airport in Kazakhstan but the problem was there was only one person behind the consular office there in Kazakhstan and he wouldn’t even speak English. We were not provided a liaison officer that could help us out. The players were really tired, they were just sleeping on the floor, so after that, 3 hours at the airport, we went to the hotel, we took our breakfast, we slept for a few hours, we watched videos then we practiced then we practice again and then we played the game. After the game, after a few hours, we packed up, went to the airport, so it was really difficult, really very hard.

(Cito: Para pala kayong OFW?)

Hindi lang OFW, ang OFW makaka pahinga ka pa, kami wala talagang pahinga. The good thing is kahit isang player hindi nagreklamo, wala kang maririnig; “coach bakit ganito, bakit ginagawa sa amin.” Nobody complained even Andray Blatche, what he did nung naghihintay kami sa loob ng airport, because he used his US passport, which did not require a visa, nakalabas siya. So nangyari mga bagahe namin, he was the one that picked up all the baggage kasi hindi kami makalabas. Paglabas namin areglado na lahat ng mga bagahe namin, and it was only Andray Blatche who did that.

BRAVO GILAS PILIPINAS!!!

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