Athletes of the Year

The reasons to feel good and proud about being a Filipino are getting scarce, except in sports, especially in the year that was. Standouts crowd the circle of excellence in both individual and team events. Team of the year is a toss between Alas Pilipinas and the Filipinas.

Both teams wrote history to their country and woe to their foes. The women booters had more impact, but the men’s volleyball team had more depth. Although its triumph in the worlds is solitary, the Filipino aces had to fight against enormous height, might and flight of a higher-ranked Egyptian team. The Filipinas didn’t have to, they relied on agility and mental and visual anticipation, especially in the penalty shootout. Who knows where the ball goes? Only the women with balls, without reference to the debate whether transwomen are women.

The Filipinas stunned defending champion Vietnam in the Southeast Asian Games. Both scoreless after 120 minutes, the gold and silver had to be separated by a thrilling penalty shootout. It lasted eternity until goalkeeper Olivia McSaver, er McDaniel, clutched the ball of gold.

Male athlete of the year is Carlos Yulo who vaulted to golden perfection in the world championships, although he failed to sweep the floor exercise and settled for bronze. Runner up is Carlo Biado who won what the magician did not, the world pool championship twice. EJ Obiena too, who remains pole vault king of Southeast Asia and prince in pole vault world royalty where Mondo Duplantis reigns supreme.

In the distaff side, Kayla Sanchez swam to 3 gold and 5 silver medals to become most decorated delegate in the Southeast Asian Games, in another testament the country’s sports program should focus more on sports where one athlete can win multiple medals. Like swimming, there should be more mermaids in the archipelago. Track too, although he bombed out in his farewell race, Eric Cray won two golds at least twice in the regionals before. And gymnastics, no evidence could be more damning than the two Olympic gold medals of Carlos Yulo in Paris.

Female athlete of the year is Alex Eala. Hands down. No need to enumerate her many firsts for the country, she is the only one carrying the flag anyway. She started her breakout and breakthrough year in Miami where she stunned three grand slam champions in a row including the world number two.

The 5’9” stunner crawled from behind to win her first match in any grand slam main draw. Alexandra the Great ranked a personal and country best of world number 50 and punctuated her year with a singles gold in Thailand.

These athletes are few of the fewer reasons to be proud as Filipinos. There could be more, but in politics they cannot be found, except for a few good men and women. No names, lest the evil troll army transforms them to infamy. No one is supposed to believe them, except their own kind.