By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

THE 16-day 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games ended last Sunday, August 8, and the accomplishments of our Philippine delegation this year was impressive and laudable. Ever since our national athletes started participating in the quadrennial meet in 1924 Paris, our 19-athletes delegation hauled a record four medals: One gold from weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, two silvers from our boxers Nesthy Petecio and Carlo Paalam and a bronze from another boxer Eumir Marcial.

The golden feat by Diaz (also known as HD by media) was the Philippines’ very first and is praiseworthy for breaking the Olympic record in her category. She attributed her remarkable achievement to the help from Above. Yes, I have to agree sans doubt. HD, 30, promised to do it one more time in Paris Olympic Games 2024, but she fears her sport might be abolished amid continued reports of doping, bribery and vote rigging. But HD assured she will definitely compete in the Southeast Asian Games and Asian Games next year.

Except her Chinese head coach Gao Kaiwen and her boyfriend-assistant coach Guam-native Julius Naranjo, nobody predicted and expected (including our national sports officials and connoisseurs) her to snatch the elusive gold this year. Against all odds, she surprised everyone particularly our national sports officials. Without a doubt, her golden effort was worth Php 58.5M from the government and private corporations excluding income from commercial product endorsements in media going on today. I honestly believe that it was her gold victory that inspired her co-Olympians to produce two silvers and a bronze that landed the Philippines on 50^th place in the overall medal tally with 206 participating countries. Yes, we clearly beat our co-southeast Asian countries and our arch-rivals in the coming SEA Games like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Prior to this XXXll Olympiad, critics said HD will not be the same Hidilyn Diaz who won the silver in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil five years ago because she was implicated by Malacañang in the ‘oust Duterte’ matrix and that caused her emotional stress even as HD vehemently denied the accusation describing it as unfounded and senseless. These critics even said that the reason HD trained in Malaysia, instead of here, was because she feared for her life. Those critics ate their words.

The silver medalist boxers, Petecio and Paalam are guaranteed P10M cash each and P5M cash for boxing bronze medalist Marcial from the government plus incentive prizes from the private sector excluding some commercial ads. Yes, let’s hope all the promises will be delivered unlike what happened to 1994 Asian Games gold medalist and 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games silver medalist Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco and his older brother, Roel who won a bronze medal in 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Their promised rewards were never given. But I believe that won’t happen under the Duterte’s administration. In fact, Pres. Duterte assigned chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports Sen. Bong Go to investigate the case of Velasco brothers. Both are now set to receive P500,000 apiece. The 15 non-medalist contestants will also receive P500,000 each for their efforts.

Yes, I doff my hat for that great idea of Pres. Duterte and Sen. Go.  Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham Tolentino is hatching a plan to fully support our national athletes before their stint abroad, not only after the Olympic Games. I agree. We should not lose the momentum that we have today if we are to see them stronger in 2024 Paris Games. I believe our nationals will do better because of the incentives in addition to the quest for the prestigious medals.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” JOHN 6: 46-47

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