Mission possible for Sweet 16

(Editor’s note: The following is the first of a series of articles on the Philippines’ participation in the 28th Olympic Games in Athens, Greece beginning August 13, 2004.)

Like Sir Galahad in search of the Holy Grail, the lean Philippine delegation of 16 athletes ventures to Athens with the dream of bringing back the country’s first Olympic gold medal.

It won’t be easy outdoing what other Filipino athletes tried to achieve in 17 previous Olympics where the Philippines has participated. But the mission isn’t impossible. With hard work and a little bit of luck, history could be made on Aug. 13-29 when the Sweet 16 compete for honors in swimming, boxing, taekwondo, athletics, shooting and archery.

Five swimmers are in the cast, namely, Miguel Mendoza, Miguel Molina, James Bernard Walsh, Jaclyn Pangilinan and Timmy Chua. The four boxers are Romeo Brin, Violito Payla, Harry Tañamor and Chris Camat. The taekwondo jins are Toni Rivero, Tshomlee Go and Donald Geisler. Eduardo Buenavista and Lerma Bulauitan-Gabito make up the tandem in athletics. Wild card entries are Jethro Dionisio of shooting and Jasmine Figueroa of archery.

Five of the 16 are holdovers from the Sydney Olympic squad that failed to bag a single medal. Back for another shot are Brin, Geisler, Buenavista, Bulauitan-Gabito and Mendoza.Brin, 31, is the senior citizen in the team. He made his Olympic debut at Atlanta in 1996 and also fought in Sydney four years later. But luck proved to be elusive as Brin lost in his first assignments in both Olympics. A third strike will be difficult to live down.

In Olympic history, the Philippines is tied with Chile in second place behind Mongolia in the dubious category of countries with the most medals but without a single gold.

So far, the Philippines has collected only two silvers and seven bronzes in the quadrennial event. Boxing has accounted for five of the nine medals, including the pair of silvers. In fact, boxing has produced the Philippines’ last four medals since Anthony Villanueva delivered a silver at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Swimmer Teofilo Yldefonso broke the ice for the Philippines by splashing to a bronze in the 200-meter breaststroke event in Amsterdam in 1928. Three Filipinos pocketed a bronze each at the Los Angeles Olympics four years later, namely, Yldefonso in a repeat performance, high jumper Simeon Toribio and bantamweight fighter Jose (Cely) Villanueva.

In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Miguel White clocked 52.8 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles to claim the bronze and add to the Philippines’ medal harvest.

Then the boxers took over. Anthony Villanueva, whose father Jose took a bronze in 1936, ended the country’s 28-year Olympic medal drought by snatching the silver in featherweight boxing in Tokyo. Villanueva deserved to win in the title bout, as most ringsiders claimed, but Russian Stanislav Stephashkin grabbed the gold via a highly-disputed split decision.

At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, lightflyweight boxer Leopoldo Serrantes settled for the bronze. Pinbuster Arianne Cerdena hit paydirt in the ladies event but alas, she never made it to the Olympic honor roll because bowling was only an exhibition sport.

Roel Velasco, another lightflyweight boxer, took the bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Games. Stephen Fernandez and Bea Lucero copped a bronze apiece in taekwondo but like Cerdena four years before, their feat was not recognized in the demonstration sport.

Velasco’s younger brother Mansueto, or Onyok, almost touched the sky at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and came down to earth with a silver, losing to Bulgaria’s Daniel Bojilov in the lightflyweight boxing finals.

In Sydney, the Philippines sent 20 athletes and none came back with a medal. It wasn’t the first time that Filipino Olympians returned home empty-handed. But the shutout ended a string of three straight Olympics where the Philippines entered the medal standings.

The Philippines celebrated its Olympic debut in the eighth edition of the Summer Games in Paris in 1924. A lone Filipino athlete, trackster David Nepomuceno, wore the national colors. He was accompanied by Dr. Regino Ylanan, the National Physical Education Director. They took a 33-day boat ride from Manila to Marseilles then went to Paris in a train, arriving a week before the start of the Olympics. A Philippine Scout, Nepomuceno competed in the 100-meter and 200-meter heats and failed to qualify for the finals.

In 1928, four athletes represented the Philippines, namely, Toribio, Yldefonso, trackster Anselmo Gonzaga and swimmer Taburan Tamse. Dr. Ylanan accompanied the athletes on another long boat ride and the delegation arrived in Amsterdam a month before the Olympics began.

(To be continued)