When will our Games begin?

We were surprised to see our athletes – divers Sheila Mae Perez and Ryan Frabriga, swimmer Christel Simms, long jumpers Marestella Torres and Henry Dagmil – at the PAL counter at the Beijing Capital Airport checking in for the flight back to Manila last Sunday, the final day of the Olympiad. We had expected them to be marching in that evening’s closing ceremonies with the remaining athletes – swimmer Miguel Molina, jins Tshomlee Go and Toni Rivero, and the wushu team.

But they told us the flight they were supposed to take on Tuesday was overbooked, and so they were shuttled to this earlier flight – which meant not marching in the closing ceremonies. But they took this disappointing turn of events in stride: “Okay lang, pagod na rin kami,” Henry says. We asked about the officials accompanying them; sure enough, they were still in Beijing for the closing. Such is the situation of our athletes: even in these Games which IOC head Jacques Rogge repeatedly stressed is “for the athletes,” they get the short end of the deal.

The lack of a comprehensive and long-term sports program – covering recruitment, training and competition – and the lack of funds are the perennial plaints for our dismal showing, at this year’s Olympics as well as in many past competitions. Sports programs and policies are set not by athletes or even coaches, but by officials of a whole host of governing bodies, from the different National Sports Associations (NSA) to the Philippine Sports Commission (who holds the purse strings) to the Philippine Olympic Committee. Various athletes and coaches we spoke to – at the Olympics and back home – admit that “sumasama lang talaga kami sa agos (we go with the flow)” and at the end of the day really have very little control over whether their recommendations – for equipment, for training and coaching, for housing and medical/physical therapy requirements, for crucial participation in international competitions – will be approved or not. One of them revealed that the head of their NSA had warned them that they should not expect much support this time because he (the NSA head) is not on very good terms with the PSC head.

Like many other things hereabouts, politics and corruption will be our ruin. It certainly doesn’t help that many of our   sports officials are not sportspeople and, apparently, not very good managers or administrators either. Add to that the fact that each time a new person assumes office, policies, programs and even personalities are changed, so there is hardly any continuity. And excellence in sports, as in all other things, cannot be achieved in the quick.

Corruption rears its ugly head in the world of sports too, and it is part of the reason the “godfather” program instituted in 2004-2005 died out. That program – major businessmen were asked to adopt a sport and see to its development to competition level – was credited for our stellar showing in the 2005 SEA Games, when we topped the medal tally. “Everything we needed was given,” one sportsman told us, “and everyone was so motivated. Athletes really just concentrated on training, and look at the results!”

The godfather program did not continue after that, because the one who spearheaded the program got embroiled in a major corruption scandal, and several of the godfathers pulled out too when they found out that some officials of the sport they had adopted had been overpricing purchases and padding expenses.

There are observations that our athletes are partly to blame; they lack motivation, focus, commitment and the sacrifice needed to not just fulfill their potential but even go beyond. That’s probably true, to some extent, but having spoken to athletes these past couple of months we found out some very human concerns that may not be directly tied to but nevertheless affect their performance on the court or the track or the pool.

Many of them come from disadvantaged backgrounds and so, to begin with, are at a physical disadvantage (which is why we should concentrate on sports that do not depend on size or sheer strength). When they come to Manila to train, their families expect them to send money home; after all, they’re now in the Big City. So they save their meager allowances, scrimp on expenses, and send money home. Often too, their living conditions in the training pool are less than ideal. One athlete told us he often lacks sleep, because they are six in a room at the athletes’ dorm and even though he goes to bed early, he can’t sleep because the others are still up and are noisy.

Conditions in most developing countries are obviously less than ideal for athletes, since there are many more pressing problems – like war and famine – facing the government and the citizens. This reality is the subject of an article on the two athletes from Somalia who competed in the Olympics (please see page 10), a poignant account of the triumph of the human spirit in spite of coming in last in the race.

While we sympathize with our athletes and admit what odds they are up against in our national quest for an Olympic medal, we cannot help but echo Samia Yusuf Omar: “I would have liked to be cheered because I won, not because I needed encouragement. It is something I will work on.”