AND while we’re still celebrating the long holiday season with renewed hopes for the future, allow me to share our 12 favorites moments in sports in the year about to end.

1.Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz and her world championship-winning performance in the IMF World Weightlifting Championships in Bogota, Colombia stands out as the biggest — and most memorable — in Philippine sports for al of 2022.

And why not?

Diaz finally completed a golden sweep as she added the elusive world title to her gold medals in the Olympics, Asian Games and Southeast Asian Games.

The 32-year old pride and joy of Zamboanga cleared 93kg on snatch and 114 kg on clean and jerk for a total of 207 kg.

That was enough to beat local favorite Rosalba Morales of Colombia (199kg) and Ana Gabriela Lopez of Mexico (198 kg)

It was the first gold for Diaz in the world chmpionships after settling for bronze in the women’s 53kg in 2015 and 2017 and again in the 55kg last year.

With the 55kg weight class scrapped in the 2024 Paris Olympics, Diaz is now moving up to the 59kg in what could be her fifth and last Olympic Games.

2.The Pilipinas women’s football team made history by advancing to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup following an inspiring 4-3 victory in penalty shooout over Chinese-Taipei in their quarterfinal match held in Pune, India last January.

Led by United States-born Sarina Isabel Bolden, the Filipinas also booked a ticket to their first-semifinal stint in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup.

3. The success of Filipino hero E. J. Obiena in various blue-ribbon competitions in Europe made him easily as one of the world’s leading pole vault competitors in the year about to end.

Obiena began the year on a high note by registering a personal season-high on the way to striking gold in the Orlen Cup in Lodz, Poland in February and finished it with his first victory in the prestigious Wanda Diamond League series by ruling the Allianz Memorial Van Damme meet in Brussels, Belgium in September.

4. Gymnastics champion Caloy Yulo clinched a silver and a bronze medal in the men’s vault and parallel bars, respectively, at the 51st FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Livelpool, England in November.

Earlier, the pint-sized champion from Malate completed an impressive stint in the 31st Southeast Asian GAmes in Vietnam with a glitterging five-gold meda romp.

5.Tennis prodigy Alex Eala achieved new heights when she captured the US Open women’s junior girls tennis championship with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Lucie Havlickova of the Czech Republic at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York back in September.

The 17-year-old Eala, who also captured the girls doubles titles in the 2019 Australian Open and 2021 French Open wirh different partners, became the first Filipino player to win a girls junior grandslam crown.

A scholar at the The Rafa Nadal Academy, Eala also saw action in two WTA tournaments as she competed in the qualifiers and the main draw of the Mardrid and Miami Open, respectively.

Eala, now ranked No. 215 by the WTA,also clinched a spot in the qualifiers of the women’s tournament in the Australian Open next year.

6.The PBA’s winningest team San Miguel Beer ended a three-year title drought by winning the PBA Philippine Cup with a masterful 115-97 triumph over TNT Tropang Giga in Game 7 of the finals before a crowd of over 15,000 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The Beermen defeated the Tropang Giga in seven hard-fought games to clinch their 28th title overall, and ninth title under veteran coach Leo Austria.

San Miguel won their sixth Philippine Cup title in the past eight years. The Beermen have previously won five straight Philippine Cup titles from 2015 to 2019.

San Miguel’s crippling 35-8 run in the fourth quarter provided some of the highs and lows in Asia’s first play-for-pay league in the year about to end.

7. Asia’s first GM Eugene Torre’s formal induction to the World Chess Hall of Fame in memorable rites in Missouri, USA is surely on top of every chess player’s list of favorite moments in 2022.

Torre, at 71 still the most recognizable player in world chess, was the first Asian player to recieve such accolade. He was enshrined after a long line of achivements highlighted by his rise as Asia’s first grandmaster in 1974.

8. Swimming champion Chloe Isleta ended the country’s 29-year gold medal drought in swimming when she ruled the women’s 200-meter backstroke event of the 31st Southeast Asian Games with a time of 2:18.60 at the My Dinh Water Sports Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam last May.

Isleta is the first Filipina swimmer to win the gold medal in the biennial event since 1993, when Akiko Thomson ruled the 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke events.

And as if to prove her victory in the SEA Games was not a fluke, the 24-year-old Isleta also captured four gold medals in the women’s 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke and 200m individual medley in the 20th ASEAN University Games at the Ban Yang Noi Campus in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand.

Isleta’s gold medal finish in both the women’s 100m and 200m backstroke events also came in record AUG times.

9. Southeast Asian W Series driver Bianca Bustamante made the country proud when she became the first Filipina to compete in the W Series championship this year.

Only 17, Bustamante is racing with the W Series Academy, an exclusive all-girls Formula 3-level racing series that seeks to discover more young female talents in motorsports.

Filipino motorsports fans had a big treat watching Bustamante compete in her sixth race of the season in Singapore.

10. Blacklist International’s dominant 4-2 win over ECHO at the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League Philippines Season 10 provided one of the most memorable moments in esports for 2022.

Led by Johnmar “OhMyV33nus” Villaluna, Blacklist also became the first team to win three championships in the league since Season 1.

Both Blacklist International and ECHO will represent the country at the M4 World Championship in Indonesia early next year.

11. Vincent “Asero” Astrolabio’s stunning, 10-round unanimous decision victoy over former two-division world champion Guillermo Rigondeaux of Cuba in their bantamweight duel in United Arab Emirates provided a great source of inspiration to Filipino boxing fans last February.

The 25-year-old pride of General Santos City, who trains under the watchful eyes of coach Nonoy Neri, followed it up with another impressive knockout win over Nikolai Potapov in their IBF bantamweight eliminator in Las Vegas early this December.

12. Rising star Aleia Aielle Aguilar became the country’s youngest world champion in the Brazilian martial art sports of jiu-jitsu at five years old following her triumph in the World Jiu-jitsu Championships in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates last November.

Aguilar, only daughter of Universal Reality Combat Championships (URCC) founder Alvin Aguilar and former world jiu-jitsu champion Maybelline Masuda, won over hometown bet Maria El Halabi, 6-0, in the semifinal, and Gabriella Vercoa a of Brazil via verbal submission in the finals to capture the gold medal in the kids’ 1-under 16 kg.

Happy New Year.

For comments and suggestions, e-mail to [email protected]