But hope isn't lost: Gloom descends on Phl sports

LONDON – Big Ben rang the death knell from the heart of London, signaling another dark moment in the history of Phillippine sports.

The final hour came Thursday afternoon at the BMX tracks where Fil-American Danny Caluag, the last man standing, crashed to the ground in the first race and never recovered.

Even before the fifth and last race of the quarterfinal was to start, chef de mission Manny Lopez and the rest of Team Philippines reached for the exit and uttered a silent goodbye to the sport and to the Olympics.

It’s time to head home or wait for the final rites.

Gone before him were 10 others, nine of them absorbing the same ignominy at the hands of the greatest athletes from every country. Their best were not always at par with even the worst. The opposition qualified under the A classification of the Olympics while they were here as must-participants under the sports-for-all rule.

Marestella Torres, two-time long jump champion in her small side of the planet, and Rene Herrera, whose personal best was the worst among 42 contenders, gave their very best to the very last.

They shivered at the unpredictable London weather and were terrified at the size of the opposition. Coming here with a career record of 6.71m in the long jump, Torres, daughter of a vendor and queen of Southeast Asia, wavered, jumped short and wept.

She didn’t like to blame the summer cold for a mark of 5.98m in her first attempt but there could not have been a better reason. Even the coldest December night of Baguio cannot compare to the stiff evening breeze of London.

She managed to improve that to 6.21 and 6.22 in her last two attempts but these could not compare with her personal best, certainly not with the eventual gold standard of 7.12m.

But her SEAG mark would’ve at least been good as seventh best in the London Olympics. She was 11th among 16 first round starters.

Herrera did not expect to win but also did not expect to be overlapped. So fast was the field that those who watched the race on TV thought he did not participate. The main pack had already reached the finish line when he was still 400 meters behind.

But his effort of 14:44.11 was recorded in the Olympic registry as a personal best, an improvement over his previous mark of 14:51.50. His heat was won by Ibrahim Hayle of Azerbaijan in 13:26.23.

About 300 meters away, at the Aquatics Center, Jasmine Alkhaldi and fellow 19-year-old Jessie King Lacuna, too young to battle the veterans, tested the waters and would have preferred to stay home.

The only consolation was that they didn’t experience stage fright because TV coverage was only for the fastest swimmers, which they were not.

The two were the best to come out of a four-year program funded by the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corporation for the 2012 Olympics. The program, costing P32 million plus, started in 2008 and ended the same year.

While the swimming president and PAGCOR were awaiting the Ombudsman’s decision to dismiss or prosecute the case involving their misuse of P34 million for the program, both swimmers found themselves in similar situations faced by compatriots before them.

They lost right in the heats, hied back to the hotel and never returned.

Alkhaldi, driven by her love for the sport, a seriousness of purpose and a passion for excellence, went to Hawaii to improve her time for London, instead of at the PASA-run TRACE College in Laguna. It was a good decision. Her time of 57.13 seconds in the 100m freestyle heats improved her World Championships mark of 58.02 seconds last year.

Lacuna, the most brilliant star to rise from the Palarong Pambansa, was on his way to greatness until a shoulder injury hampered his training. But he was never intimidated by the power of Frenchman Agnel Yannick who won the 200m freestyle in 1:43.14.

He clocked 1:52.66, which was not good enough to send him in the company of Yannick and the super fishes but he had something in mind his coach must have ignored.

His coach Pinky Brozas said he swam too fast (26.03 seconds) in the first 50 meters and slowed down in the last 150 meters. He should have paced himself.

No. If he swam as fast in the next 150 meters he could have advanced to the semifinal. Lacuna knows he can do it, and will do just that and more on his way to Rio in 2016.

Archers Mark Javier and Rachelle Anne Cabral, who could not shoot straight because of antiquated bows and arrows, could be pardoned if they were hitting their targets with trembling hands.

It was not because of the weather or the crowd – there was no crowd because the Lord’s Cricket Ground closed the gates to outsiders. Their experience is a tragic replay of intramurals and squabbling in the archery association.

They were like students cramming for the engineering exams, who could not write a thing on the first day. Like in Beijing four years ago, they groped for form, hit 8s and 9s when their rivals had perfect 10s. They lost in the first round.

Pocket-size lifter Hidilyn Diaz couldn’t believe it when she could not lift even 118 kilos (she could do 125kg in practice) even once in three tries. She experienced, for the first time, a zero in her score in the finals of the 56 kg class in weightlifting.

She thought it was the Summer Games. No, it was coldest Summer Games. She fouled when her arm hit her leg on the first try, and almost choked and passed out when the bar pressed against her throat in the next attempt. She simply could not initiate a lift in the third attempt and lay flat on the floor.

But Hidilyn, 22, is young. After wiping her tears and saying sorry to her countrymen, the nation’s flagbearer vowed to go to Rio in 2016 to win a medal. She knew she could because her rivals are old and will soon retire while she is still in her prime.

Judoka Toshina Tomohiko knew that if he joined a national tryout in Japan where the sport originated and he and his family live, he would not qualify and would go home with broken bones. He found an opportunity in the land of his mom from Bulacan and joined the Phl contingent.

In the shortest competition of the Olympics – a five-minute one round contest – he exited at the quickest time, barely 1:06 of the round from an ippon by his opponent from South Korea.

Hardly had he changed to street clothes when he announced in the interview that he was retiring.

Shooter Brian Paul Rosario lost a seat in the finals but he is not losing hope. He fired a perfect 25 in the third round, indicating that all he needs in training is consistency, which is of the essence in the sport of skeet shooting, or short range shooting of clay targets with a shotgun.

If he commits himself to the sport, he has ready support from new shooting head Mikee Romero, himself a former shooter.

Mark Barriga did not get an encouraging mark from boxing analysts back home because he had lost a number of times in his runup to the Games.

His awesome 17-7 victory over Manuel Cappai of Italy in the first round of the lightflyweight category of boxing changed all that. He also earned the distinction as the only Filipino among 11 entries to go past the first round of competitions.

That feat alone proved beyond reasonable doubt that this 20-year-old slugger from Panabo, Davao del Norte can reach the medal round and hand the Philippines its first and only medal. The referees’ decision to slap him a penalty for butting in the crucial third round ruined everything that the boxing association of Ricky Vargas, Ed Picson, and Pato Gregorio had painstakingly done to send him to London.

While the results were not what everybody wanted them to be, the boxing association backed by Manny Pangilinan will continue to be the source of pride and honor for the country in whatever stage of competition – the SEA Games, Asian Games or Olympics.

Barriga and his association may not have brought home the gold but they provided the hope and light in Philippine sports’ darkest hour.