Several world-class athletes play to play for Team Philippines in Olympic Games

IN the dying months of his term as Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president, Peping Cojuangco held court and fielded questions from several sportswriters, including his take in the number of gold medals our Tokyo-bound Olympians would be bring home.

His curt answer from the question with regards to his prediction elicited secret, silent smiles from some scribes, not quite sure if Cojuangco was serious or not.

“We’ll will win four or five gold medals (in Tokyo)”, Cojuangco said without batting an eyelash, talking as if winning an Olympic gold is as easy as googling a curriculum vitae of a world champ.

Somehow you can’t blame the old man. He is, after all, long enough to have stayed in the corridors of local sports power not to know when a Filipino athlete would shine or flop.

Inside the same room, Cojuangco merrily talked about the strength of the national team bound for the Tokyo Games, led by weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, the same athlete who gave the country its third silver medal in faraway Rio after boxers Anthony Villanueva and Onyok Velasco had given theirs in the 1964 and 1994 Olympics, respectively.

Cojuangco’s bold prediction has come to mind in the light of other Philippines’ sports officials’ admission the Tokyo Games will the country’s biggest chance for a first ever Olympic gold medal given the world-class caliber of several members of Team Philippines.

“One or two (gold medals in Tokyo),” POC president Congressman Bambol Tolentino told the Philippine Sportswriters Association online Sports Forum in one of his guesting in the weekly show. ” Now is our best time to end that very long wait”.

Even Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman William Ramirez is on the same page.

“If science-based, we do not have proof, but Hidilyn Diaz and Caloy (Yulo) have proven that they can,” Ramirez told CNN Philippines then.

“We are lucky that we have the opportunity to support them,” Ramirez said.

Since the PSC head made that interview, a few other athletes have made it, with no less than golfer Yuka Saso occupying a place of prominence in Team PH.

In a Sunday to remember, Filipino fans in San Francisco came in droves to cheer for our very own Yuka as she took a stab at sporting glory at the rich, prestigious US Women’s Open in Olympic Park.

And Yuka didn’t disappoint as she won the championship via a playoff, beating a gritty Japanese and pocketing a huge $1 million purse. In victory, the teenaged girl who grew up in San Ildefonso in Bulacan (her father is a Japanese; her mother a Filipina) emerged as the first Filipino golfer to win a Major award.

“The likelihood of more Filipinos winning a gold medal in Tokyo has become greater,” Tolentino told sportswriters during the POC General Assembly meeting.

“Yuka’s confidence level has definitely gone up and that will be her advantage in the Olympic. Her feat just added more chances for us to finally win a gold,” the Cavite congressman added.

It’s not only Saso who’s capable of achieving the feat. There are at least four to four others who can finally end that long wait.

One of them is Carlos Yulo, the Japan-based gymnast whose inspirational triumph in the 2019 world artistic gymnastics in Stuttgart, Germany fanned the flames of the country’s consciousness in the sport. A few days ago, Yulo his readiness for Tokyo by snaring a bronze in the parallel bars during a Japanese meet.

In Tokyo, the diminutive Yulo is expected to set out as one of the hot favorites in the floor exercise, the same event he won in Stuttgurt as the youngest competitor at the age of 18. More than a year later, he regaled the home crowd with two gold and five silver medals in the 30th SEA Games.

Pole vaulter EJ Obiena is another one. He’s been giving his Olympic rivals a run for his money, the last coming a few weeks ago when he beat his training partner Thiago Braz to capture the gold in the Gothenburg Athletics Grand Prix in Sweden.

At the moment, there are 10 Pinoys who have qualified for the team, the last being skateboarder Margielyn Didal whose entry was officially by World Skate which released its rankings yesterday.

Didal maintained her No. 13 ranking in the women’s street category despite missing out on a finals berth in the Street World championships in Rome last week , well within the Top 20 cutoff.

Saso is good as in, having risen to No. 9 in the latest rankings following her US Open win. Her compatriot, Bianca Pagdanganan, is also expected to make it since she’s well within the Top 60, the number magic of participants.

There’s a likelihood that Juvic Pagunsan will join the trip since since he’s in Top 60, something that was brought about by his first first-ever victory in the Japanese circuit a couple of weeks ago.

With several Filipinos still in the hunt for Olympic berths, chances are Team PH will most likely made up of around 15 or 20 athletes which be the biggest ever to carry the national colors in 21 years.

Thirteen athletes saw action in Rio, with Hidilyn coming home as the only medalist.

The others who qualified are boxers Eumir Marcial, Carlo Paalam, Nesthy Petecio and Irish Magno, rower Cris Nievarez and taekwondo’s Kurt Barbosa.

Four-time SEA Games gold medalist Kiyomi Watanabe is also expected to make it, along with possible athletes from karatedo, judo, triathlon, archery, swimming and athletics.

“Counting these athletes, our chances for the gold will be much bigger than the previous Olympics,” Tolentino said.