God’s answer

By Al S. Mendoza

AS I said the last time out, I prayed for Tshomlee Go and Tonette Rivero to win their taekwondo events in the Beijing Olympics.

Alas, they lost.

With their losses, coming yet terribly in their first times at bat, the country emerged medalless, winless.

Like in the previous two Olympics in 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens, we laid another big, fat egg in Beijing.

God does not always answer our prayers?

Wrong.

He does.

Not always in the affirmative, though.

He answered “no” to my prayers, to your prayers, too. But that does not mean he does not love us.

He has his reasons for not acquiescing to our prayers.

His “no” for an answer could be interpreted to mean as the answer of the victorious opponent: “More practice.”

Or, “You lost because we are better prepared than you.”

Or, “God gave us the luck to win, so better luck next time.”

In short, God makes us lose so that we can think of reasons why we lost.

Not necessarily to blame God.

Although God is a real sportsman, He doesn’t play favorites.

Always, He is impartial.

His battle cry is, “Help yourself first, before I will help you.”

****

Did we help ourselves? I mean, did our 15 athletes really train that hard for the Beijing Olympics?

I believe, they did.

But then again, their training was not enough. Their best was not enough.

Look, isn’t it pathetic that we go to the Olympics merely to break Philippine records?

You know what?

The opposition go to the Olympics once in four years to break world records, Olympic records.

In our case, we become Olympians merely to break Philippine records.

Consider:

Our Philippine records could not even break the Olympic records of 1924. And we are boasting of Philippine records broken in the Olympics!

That’s how far we’ve been in Olympic competition.

****

One man won eight gold medals in Beijing and, in so doing, American Michael Phelps broke seven World Records.

We had 15 athletes sent to Beijing.

Not one won even a bronze medal.

Swimmers broke four Philippine records and three SEA Games records.

We don’t need to go to the Olympics to break those records.

We can do those things in the Palarong Pambansa – and we don’t spend that much staging the event.

In the Beijing trip, the government spent at least P50 million for our 15 athletes.

In the Beijing trip, the government combined with several millionaires to dangle a P15-million reward to any gold medalist.

And some can even have the gall to complain that athletes don’t receive much incentive.

****

The most asked question, as always, each time an Olympic debacle hits us is: Why do we still send athletes to the Olympics when we hardly have a ghost of a chance to win?

There are many crazy reasons like, we need to be there because we need to be there, or because we qualified in the eliminations.

But the craziest reason is, Filipinos love to be different. We don’t care if we win or lose. Losing anyways is part of the game.

Thus, we lost badly in the Olympics – again.

So what?

We can’t win, can never win, in Olympic basketball, right?

But still, we keep trying to get that elusive Asian slot in Olympic basketball.

That’s how crazy we are. We are too small for a game invented for giants. Yet, we don’t only love playing it.

We have made it our national pastime.

Every sport in this country outside of basketball is but second-rate.

And we want to win in the Olympics?

What else is new?

So, God’s answer to our woes should He decide to is very simple:

Wake up, fellas.

(Readers may reach columnist at also147@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/general-admission/ For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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