Bouncing back in sports and life

VANCOUVER – Vancouver weather at this time of the year is typically chilly, damp and rainy with a day temperature of five degrees Celsius  (around 37 Fahrenheit) and much lower in the evening. In fact, Sunday, is the first day for the sun to show itself since we arrived on Thursday.

The weather may be cold but the people aren’t, both Canadians and Filipinos who have chosen to settle down in this resource-rich North American country of about 35 million consisting of Caucasian Canadians, indigenous groups and immigrants. In the several times that we have been to Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto, we have noticed the over-all friendliness of Canadians, starting with its embassy staff in Manila and airport immigration officers.

Vancouver City is part of Greater Vancouver, which has a population of about 2.3 million. Greater Vancouver consists of 12 cities, three villages, one island municipality, five district municipalities and one unincorporated area. 

Vic Lorenzo, a classmate at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), is one of the many Filipinos with whom we have reconnected in Vancouver. The other is Rey Yap whom I hadn’t seen since we graduated from AIM in 1973.  Vic and his wife, the former Lylette Ludan, are devout members of the Catholic Charismatic renewal movement.

Vic, who heads the I Love to Read Learning Centre Foundation, Inc. recently wrote a book, “Coffee With Jesus (A Businessman’s Chat)”, which will be launched in Manila in February this year when Vic joins the rest of  our Master of Business Management (MBM) ‘73  class for its 40th anniversary reunion.

In Coffee With Jesus, Vic shares his daily chats with Jesus and is, in the words of Fr. Ruben Tanseco, SJ, of the Center for Family Ministries, “the greatest challenge to integrate the secular with the sacred in one’s everyday life.”

 Chapter 21 of the book is a narration by Vic’s son, Martin entitled “Metal to Metal” or the story of falling, then picking up the pieces and bouncing back again – in sports and in life.

As Martin narrates it, the day was August 10, 2011, four days before the Kona qualification in Camarines Sur (Camsur) 70.3 Cobra Philippines. According to Martin, “Kona is the capital city of Big Island, Hawaii. Every October, the yearly Ironman World Championships are held in. There are roughly 1,500 of the fittest athletes that qualify to race here from the more than 30 Ironman events worldwide. Martin was in the middle of training to qualify for Kona.

Martin had built his body in such a short time to peak and race fitness. He had his last track workout and had finished his short session. He went inside the car to drive home and prepare his battle gear for the race. He was leaving the next day for Camsur. Martin had been on the road for only five minutes and was turning left into the street leading to Fort Bonifacio when a white car veered into his lane and almost hit his front bumper and the jeepney in front of him.

The jeepney driver was furious and decided to chase the car down, and, as Martin continues to narrate it, “when we reached another (traffic light), he asked me to come down and help talk to the driver in the heavily-tinted white car. As I approached the driver’s side, the window was rolled down and I heard a loud bang. As I was stunned, it took a while until my body registered that I had been shot. The pain seeped in only after some time. I had to drive myself to the nearest hospital (St. Luke’s Global) as no one bothered to assist me.”

Two hours after Martin reached the emergency room, he underwent surgery. The operation lasted from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The bullet narrowly missed his lungs and major arteries.  Despite complete information given to the police (car license plate number, etc.), the gunman is scot-free. In fact, Martin’s assailant was not even brought in for questioning.

Three weeks out of the hospital, Martin and his family (Italian wife, Marzia; and children Mateo and Isabella) took a short vacation in Cebu. Martin was starting, although tentatively, his road to recovery. On June 24, 2012, Martin completed the full Ironman in Nice, France finishing among the top 20 percent of the total athlete count and also top 20 percent in his age group.

At the end of the race, Martin wrote, “This one-day Ironman race is a replica of one’s entire life in bits and pieces. There are valleys and peaks that you must overcome, and it gets harder as one gets older in life (more responsibilities, etc.). But it is not through your accomplishments that you are judged but the process that you undertook to get there – “winning” is just a bonus.

 At this time of the year, Canada’s sports press chooses the country’s most outstanding athletes. Christine Sinclair has earned the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as The Canadian Press female athlete of 2012. As Lori Ewing of “The Globe and Mail” puts it, “the 29-year old star of Canada’s women’s soccer team lifted her squad to a bronze medal at last summer’s Olympics, Canada’s first medal in a traditional team sport since 1936. Sinclair joins the ranks of other outstanding Canadian athletes, among them Wayne Gretzky of hockey and Laker Steve Nash.