Forever Dreaming

Do you know that in history only one man has ever won gold medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympics?

According to the Sports Fanatic’s Almanac, American Eddie Eagan is the only man to have won gold medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.  In 1920 he won the light heavyweight boxing title in the Antwerp Games.  Twelve years after his feat in the Summer Olympiad, Eagan was part of the two-man bobsled team with Hubert Stevens that won the gold in the Lake Placid Winter Olympiad.

If you are interested in sports facts, you might also be interested to know that the Sportswriters Association of Cebu-Hapee Sports Quiz will be held on September 27 at the Ayala Center Cebu Activity Area.

This project is also backed by Richmedia Inc., which has digital signs put up around Ayala Center and several ports in the country.

The competition is however open only to high school students.

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While some people have won two or more Olympic gold medals, our country is yet to scrape one and we have one bet remaining in Beijing – taekwondo jin Toni Rivero.

There is still a chance and I hope that something good can still happen.

Of course when this Olympics is over, we would again hear our politicians raising hell about the lack of a real sports development program and would then ask for an audit of the funds spent for sports.

This happens after every Olympics, so it is not exactly newsworthy anymore.  This does not however mean we’ll just sit back and relax and wait four years again to remember our dream to win a gold medal.

I’m very sure that the Olympians of China for the 2012 London Games are already deep in training and so are the bets of countries like Australia, USA, and those that many people call little-known countries that have won medals while the Philippines has nil.

They can prepare well for the competition, because their sports development program is not one that is only touted as long term when it is launched, but then would immediately die a natural death with the changing of the leadership either in the sports body or the government.

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The national sports associations (NSAs) are the governing bodies of the different sporting disciplines.  They are also members of the international organizations that run their respective competitions in the Olympics and other major events.

The set up is not really flawed, but one obvious reason why we have stagnated or, worse, retrogressed, is that some leaders of the NSAs seem to think they own proprietary rights to the leadership.

Not all may be doing bad even if they hold on to their posts longer than the average life span of Filipinos, but then being the head of the organization and doing something for the good of the sport don’t seem to work well together for many so-called sports leaders.

What is really worrisome is that some leaders are more concerned about their travels to various international competitions rather than the improvement of the skills of their athletes.

If this continues, the Olympic gold medal will forever be a dream.

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MILESTONES: One of the best cooks in our family is Jose ‘Uncle Jun’ Miranda, Jr., who is married to my aunt, Marydel Quiñones.  This is not about his cooking though, but his turning a year older today.

I’d love to taste his cooking again though.  Happy birthday Uncle Jun!