Revamp is the name of the game

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

DAYS after the Beijing Olympic Games, our national sports czars headed by Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) President Peping Cojuangco; Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella, chief de mission; and Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chair Butch Ramirez came out into the “open” to voice out their best alibis, bickering, finger-pointing, and lamenting for the hugely disappointing performance of our national athletes in the just concluded Summer Games.

It’s the third consecutive Olympic stint of our national athletes where they came back empty handed, and the Beijing joust was their worst. Why?

Because — unlike the 2000 and the 2004 Olympics where we almost bagged at least a bronze medal — this time our nationals bowed out very early, losing in their first matches.

This is an embarrassing performance, knowing that this country with 90 million people was out-medalled by smaller and poorer nations like Kenya, Ethiopia, North Korea, and Togo, to name a few.

As I’ve said before, something is really majorly wrong in our national sports program and to be blamed are our top national sports leaders. Command-responsibility, ‘ika nga.

But of the three national sports honchos, the fellow I admire is Ramirez, for not being a hypocrite, owning up to some of the responsibility. He said he’s ready to relinquish his post if asked to, and also asked his colleagues to do the same, especially the non-performing National Sports Associations (NSA) heads.

It was short of saying that they really failed to fulfill the goal and would want to give the chance to others who are also knowledgeable and experienced in sports leadership.

This means that a mass voluntary resignation or a total revamp is badly needed from top to bottom to avoid more misfortunes in the future.

Remember, we placed sixth (from first place in 2005) out of 11 countries in the 2007 Southeast Asia Games.

But Puentevella, also the vice president of POC, is tight-lipped about Ramirez’ idea and just said he has to sit down and talk with the NSA leaders and set up another sports summit early next month to avert derailment of the sports program.

Cojuangco echoed Puentevella’s notion. But Cojuangco is also a politician like Puentevella, and many other leaders of the NSA. Heading the NSA is their vehicle to gaining popularity and to coax votes when they run for a political position.

Ramirez insists on prioritizing boxing, taekwondo, weightlifting, athletics, swimming, fencing, badminton, and table tennis where height is not might. He forgot to mention gymnastics and diving.

Look what happened to the Chinese in these two sports. Their players are small in size but giant in garnering gold medals.

We have to start early, at least eight years in preparation and the agony of training is always there. But we have to fulfill the dream, win the elusive gold.

As the two cliches in sports say: “Champions are not born, they are made” and “No pain, no gain”.

I firmly believe in these sayings and I applied these in my own training and competitions in 1977 and these paid off handsomely, becoming a national champion anew, even defeating Italian-trained two-time Asian cycling champ Sutiyono (sorry, I forgot his first name) of Indonesia.

Yes, most of our RP athletes broke their national records and I doff my hat and applaud them.

But this is Olympic Games and not national championships.

What we, the Filipinos, want is a medal or medals like what boxers Anthony Villanueva Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco and company achieved.

We have to avoid another humiliation come the 2012 London Olympic Games.

And revamp is the name of the game. Period.

(Readers may reach columnist at biking.jess@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/sports-eye/
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