Empty-handed again

A few hours ago, the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London officially ended. And for the fourth straight Olympics (2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing), the Philippine delegation will be coming home empty-handed. Not even a bronze medal to crow about.

 Last we won a medal was in 1996 in Atlanta when boxer Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco won silver. That medal brought our total Olympic medal haul to nine, making us the most bemedalled country without a gold, which has eluded us since we first joined the Olympics in 1924 in Paris.

 It might be interesting to note, however, that the Philippines started winning medals very soon thereafter. We won a bronze in 1928 in Amsterdam, then three bronzes in 1932 in Los Angeles, and another bronze in 1936 in Berlin.

 We hibernated for a while but crashed the medal board once again in 1964 in Tokyo when boxer, Anthony Villanueva, brought home a silver. Then three more boxers gave us medals — Leopoldo Serrantes, bronze, 1988 Seoul; Roel Velasco, bronze, 1992 Barcelona; and Onyok.

 Of the nine medals we won in the Olympics, five were from boxing, two from swimming, and two from athletics. Our participation in the 1932 Los Angeles Games was our most productive. We won three bronze medals there.

 These bronzes came courtesy of Jose Villanueva in boxing, Simeon Toribio in men’s high jump, and Teofilo Yldefonso in men’s 200 meter breaststroke. Yldefonso also won bronze in the same event in Amsterdam in 1928. In 1936 in Berlin Miguel White won bronze in men’s 400 meter hurdles.

 With his two bronzes, Yldefonso became the Philippines’ only multiple medal winner. Some, however, made winning a family affair. Jose Villanueva is the father of Anthony, while Roel and Onyok Velasco are brothers.

 As seen from our medal tally, our strongest suit is boxing, which gave us five medals, four of them making up our winnings. Our two medals in swimming and two in athletics were won decades ago, at a time when modern sports technology played little part in athletic performance.

 But while our medals came from only three disciplines, we have participated in several other sporting events like basketball, archery, cycling, equestrian, fencing, judo, shooting, wrestling, weight-lifting, taekwondo, diving, and sailing.

 In what could be an indication of where we are headed as a sporting nation, we sent a midget (who stood no taller than the hip of Pau Gasol in a photo) to compete in our winningest sport — boxing, the level of which is so high our other boxers failed all Olympic qualifiers.

 For our two other medal-winning sporting events — we sent no one to swim in London, apparently disheartened by dismal performances in past several Olympics. We did send a runner for the men’s 5,000 meters but he finished dead last.

 We also sent a Fil-Am BMX cyclist whom nobody knew or heard of until somebody published  the names of the delegation. An unknown Fil-Japanese was also fielded for judo. Both promptly lost their assignments, as did those in archery, weight-lifting and equestrian.

 I know what those in charge of our sports programs will say of our debacle: We have learned our lessons and we will start preparing for 2016 in Rio. To them I say, wrong. You do not prepare for a mere four years for the Olympics.

 If you honestly want to win that elusive gold, choose the sport where you are strongest and have the best chance of winning. Then select your athletes on merit, not connection, and insulate them from politics. Finally, prepare them through a lifetime for that one single moment.